MBA - Patrick Parkinson - Physics · Strategy · Innovation

Patrick Parkinson - Physics · Strategy · Innovation

MBA

A collection of 12 posts

Is Research a Sport, a Market or a Commons?

Is Research a Sport, a Market or a Commons?

Is academic research a sport, a business, or a commons? As UK universities face unprecedented financial strain, we confront an uncomfortable truth: the sector is simply too large for the available funding. We've passed the 'Szilard point' - and it’s time to manage the market reality.

A Start Up is (Not) All You Need: Exploring the Innovation Design Space

A Start Up is (Not) All You Need: Exploring the Innovation Design Space

Seen through a one-dimensional lens - public research on the left, commercial spin-out on the right - ARIA's investments look indefensible. But the map is wrong, not the decisions.

The Geometry of Expertise: Mapping R&D Capability in High Dimensions

The Geometry of Expertise: Mapping R&D Capability in High Dimensions

A university is between an R&D lab and an open-source project. Top-down levers fail. So I built a pipeline to map 1,900 researchers as a navigable knowledge space to turn 'corridor knowledge' into strategy.

Evaluating the Incomparable: How to Judge a Portfolio of One

Evaluating the Incomparable: How to Judge a Portfolio of One

When evaluating a "portfolio-of-one," the attempt to use standard metrics isn't rigour, it’s category error. From promotions panels to VC offices, our obsession with defensible metric counting often masks the very potential we claim to be seeking.

The Consultants Aren't the Problem

The Consultants Aren't the Problem

Universities don't have a consultant problem; they have a strategic capability vacuum. Academia excels at producing research, but our incentive structures actively punish structural, S-type innovation. It's time to stop outsourcing our strategy and start building S-type leadership capacity.

The Incomplete Map: Why Materials Science Won't Have Its AlphaFold Moment

The Incomplete Map: Why Materials Science Won't Have Its AlphaFold Moment

AlphaFold is a powerful interpolator, not an extrapolator. Savage's small vs large world framework explains why - and why the real prize in materials AI is building tools that know what they don't know.

Fail Fast, Learn Faster - Rethinking Talent Up-Skilling

Fail Fast, Learn Faster - Rethinking Talent Up-Skilling

I built a decentralized micro-fund to upskill 400+ postdocs. It funded great science, but data revealed broken incentives and AI vulnerabilities. Here is my post-mortem on failing fast in leadership, and redesigning a high-signal skills accelerator.

Marketing Discovery: Whither PhDs?

Marketing Discovery: Whither PhDs?

Peter Drucker said marketing makes selling superfluous. Today? We are effectively cold-calling geniuses to accept near-minimum wages for a 20% shot at a job. The legacy PhD model is broken. It’s time to stop selling an academic lottery ticket and start engineering a levered asset.

Sovereign Ambidexterity: A VRIO View from Seoul

Sovereign Ambidexterity: A VRIO View from Seoul

The UK excels at low-TRL discovery; Korea defines the 'Super-Gap' in scaling. Alone, we face limits. Together, can we create a perfect 'Ambidextrous' partnership? I explore how a transnational VRIO strategy couples these strengths to flatten the deeptech J-Curve.

Scaling the 11th Century Start-up, or, Why Universities Break People

Scaling the 11th Century Start-up, or, Why Universities Break People

53% of academics show signs of depression. This is a role design failure, not a resilience issue: we are managing 21st-century experts with medieval guild structures. To fix the crisis, we must abandon the 'Lone Wolf' myth and re-engineer the role. Don't blame the players; change the game.

The £13B non-profit: Valuing the modern University

The £13B non-profit: Valuing the modern University

"University isn't worth it?" Applying a corporate valuation model to UK HE reveals a £13bn asset - more than Man Utd & City combined. It’s time to stop managing universities like charities and start valuing them as sovereign utilities.

Equity for Equations: The Rise of Venture-Backed Physics

Equity for Equations: The Rise of Venture-Backed Physics

I started 2026 with a grant rejection letter. Meanwhile, 'Neolabs' like Periodic and SSI are raising billions without a product. We are witnessing the birth of a new asset class: the venture-backed Institute for Advanced Study.