I worked at a large industrial R&D lab around 2010 and it was awesome. It was not pure R&D, because the lab was funded by various business lines as “clients”, which sometimes came with strings attached, but as a model it worked pretty well.
By my estimation about half of the work was real fundamental research with no obvious immediate market or clearly guaranteed business value. There was some pressure to “sell” this work internally after the fact, but that usually ended up making it better.
The other half of the work was more directly commissioned by various business lines. They were responsible for product development, but would enlist us to look into 3rd wave innovation and technology (which we would be experts in because we spent the other half of our time on it).
The mixed model kept the lab grounded in reality, but also created enough freedom to do real R&D.
By my estimation about half of the work was real fundamental research with no obvious immediate market or clearly guaranteed business value. There was some pressure to “sell” this work internally after the fact, but that usually ended up making it better.
The other half of the work was more directly commissioned by various business lines. They were responsible for product development, but would enlist us to look into 3rd wave innovation and technology (which we would be experts in because we spent the other half of our time on it).
The mixed model kept the lab grounded in reality, but also created enough freedom to do real R&D.