Technical & R&D Consulting

The questions companies actually bring

Technical consulting is usually needed at one of a few decision points, and recognising which is yours shapes what the work looks like.

• Will this work before we spend on it? A feasibility assessment: whether a proposed route, material or process is supported by the evidence, and what would have to be true for it to succeed at scale.
• Why did this fail? Failure investigation, working from the physical evidence and test data rather than from assumption, to identify the dominant cause rather than the most visible symptom.
• Is this claim credible? Independent review of a supplier’s data, a partner’s technical case, or a proposal your team cannot easily evaluate.
• What does the literature actually say? A rigorous review of published evidence, separating what is established from what is asserted, on a question your team does not have time to research properly.
• What are we missing? A second opinion from outside, where an internal team has been close to a problem long enough that its assumptions have stopped being visible.
• Due diligence. Technical assessment supporting an investment, an acquisition or a partnership decision.

Why bring in a researcher rather than a consultancy

The practical difference is what happens when the evidence is incomplete, which in technical problems it usually is.

Research training is largely training in handling exactly that: working out what the available evidence supports, what it does not, and what would have to be measured to settle the question. That is a different skill from applying a known framework, and it is the one that matters when the answer is not already in a playbook.

The other difference is domain depth. Someone who has spent years on a narrow technical question knows the literature, knows which published results are robust and which are widely cited but thin, and knows what the standard methods actually establish. That knowledge is difficult to acquire quickly and is the reason specialist advice is worth buying.

What you should expect is a straight answer, including when it is unwelcome. An independent reviewer whose conclusion always matches what the client hoped for is not adding much.

Fields covered

Expertise is matched to the problem rather than drawn from a general pool, so the relevant question is whether someone with the right background is available for your specific question — which is settled in the first conversation.

Work regularly covers areas including:

• Materials and polymers — formulation, characterisation, degradation and failure analysis.
• Chemistry and process — reaction routes, scale-up feasibility, process troubleshooting.
• Data science and modelling — whether a model does what is claimed, and whether the data supports it.
• Life sciences and health — evidence review, study design, and interpretation of trial or laboratory data.
• Engineering — technical assessment and independent review.
• Social and market research — where a commercial question needs methodologically sound evidence rather than a survey nobody can defend.

If your question does not obviously sit in one of those, describe it anyway. Part of the first conversation is establishing whether the right expertise is available, and you will be told plainly if it is not.

How an engagement works

1. You describe the problem and the decision it feeds. What you need to know, by when, and what the answer will be used for — because a report supporting a capital decision and a report settling an internal disagreement are different documents.
2. An NDA first, where confidentiality matters. Signed before any detail is discussed. Your data, your IP and your commercial information remain yours.
3. A scoping conversation, at no cost. This establishes what can actually be answered with what exists, and what would need to be measured or obtained. Occasionally the outcome is that your question can be settled internally, and you will be told that.
4. Agreed scope and deliverable before work starts — what will be assessed, what will be produced, and what falls outside.
5. The work, and a report you can act on. Written for the people making the decision rather than for a journal: the conclusion first, the reasoning behind it, the limits of what the evidence supports, and what would resolve any remaining uncertainty.

What you receive

• A clear answer to the question asked, stated up front rather than buried in discussion.
• The reasoning, so your team can check it rather than take it on trust.
• An honest account of the limits — what the available evidence does not settle, and what would.
• Recommended next steps where the question cannot be closed on existing evidence: the specific tests, data or trials that would resolve it.
• Documentation your team can use internally, in language a decision-maker can read without a translator.

Confidentiality runs throughout. Work is not referenced, published or used as a case study without written permission, and commercially sensitive detail stays with you.