Ford, Purdue Team Up As Auto, Mobility R&D Partners

Ford is going back to school, joining Purdue University in an R&D alliance to develop new technology for automobiles, and more broadly for mobility solutions and transportation services.

The project will involve Purdue faculty and students as well as Ford researchers.

Ed Krause, Ford global manager-external alliances, says each partner will contribute its own expertise to the research projects.

“No organization has sufficient internal resources for technical leadership in all areas of interest,” Krause says in a statement. “We see a number of technologies coming together that will not only enable autonomy, but also dramatically impact the industry in other ways.”

Dan Hirleman, Purdue's chief corporate and global partnerships officer, says the automaker chose Purdue as an alliance partner based on positive benchmarking with other companies and on successful previous interactions.

“When you look at the alliance program Ford has structured, it’s one of the best that we’ve seen,” Hirleman says. “It’s developed into an excellent model for industry-university partnerships.”

The alliance will make it easier for Purdue faculty from all disciplines to connect with Ford personnel to propose research ideas.

Ford has invested substantial funds within the past four years for more than 20 projects at Purdue, mostly for research within mechanical engineering. The automaker says the new alliance model provides strategic focus and proven processes that should lead to a dramatic increase in the scale and breadth of research collaboration.

Ford stresses it has realistic expectations on what can be accomplished on university campuses, understanding the respective strengths and weaknesses of academic and industrial R&D. It has an internal process to evolve, refine and implement successful collaborative results.

“We don’t expect you to deliver a product directly out of a university, but rather show concept readiness that we can evolve to application readiness within Ford,” Krause says.