It took Narayan Subramanian years to develop his problem-solving skills.
During his PhD studies, there weren’t many resources available for students to cultivate their skills beyond their lab work. To prevent a similar fate for today’s researchers, Narayan Subramanian, senior manager of the Front End of Innovation at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, teamed up with the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) to host a three-part series on innovation - the UChicago PME-Polsky Innovation Seminar Series.
“After spending 20 years in the corporate world and returning to academia, I was eager to share these skills and insights with students,” Narayan said. “That desire to bridge the gap between academic research and industry readiness was the starting point for this event.”
Last year, the Polsky Center and UChicago PME organized a three-part seminar series spread across three months, during which attendees would learn how to blend theory with real-life applications. UChicago PME brought the series back this year. On May 21, Narayan led one of the three seminars focused on Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving, a method developed in the 1940s under the Soviet Union, TRIZ is a tool using which you can map a problem as a contradiction and solve them using one of the 40 inventive principles.
The three-part seminar series spanned multiple key concepts for UChicago PME graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, beginning with gauging the applicability of research in real-world applications, to leveraging and understanding the role of patents, and finally on the use of transformative problem-solving methods, said Briana Konnick, director of career development at UChicago PME.
“Innovation and entrepreneurship are key components of the UChicago PME culture: in 2024, just under half of all provisional patents filed at the University came from research conducted at UChicago PME,” Konnick said. “In addition, many of our graduate students and postdocs are interested in careers in industry and business, and so teaching them fundamental concepts in translating and aligning research to industry felt natural. We’re excited to continue this impactful partnership with Dr. Narayan at the Polsky Center.”
Overall, the seminar aims to help UChicago PME’s graduate students and postdoctoral researchers shift their mindset and eventually view their work through the lens of strategic impact, intellectual property, and real-world application, said Vipul Sharma, director for postdoctoral affairs at UChicago PME.
“By collaborating with the Polsky Center, we are helping our students and postdocs bridge the gap between discovery and deployment,” Sharma said. “This isn’t just about entrepreneurship; it’s about developing translational fluency and empowering researchers to drive innovation across sectors.”
Though Narayan had been exposed to other problem-solving methods during his career at General Electric (GE), the TRIZ method stood out to him.
In the 1940s, engineers Genrich Altschuller and Rafael Shapiro developed the TRIZ method under the auspices of the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Iron Curtain, these problem-solving methods made their way to the U.S., Europe and elsewhere around the world. They were eventually adopted by large companies like GE and Samsung, Narayan noted during the presentation.
In essence, the TRIZ method involves identifying the problem, eliminating contradictions, generating ideas and considering the current systems. Or, put simply, do the benefits of a possible solution outweigh the harms and costs of implementing it?
The theory stems from the idea that there are universal patterns of invention and innovation. Therefore, you can solve any problem efficiently by looking to those patterns rather than starting from scratch, Subramanian noted during the seminar.
“Unlike other methods, TRIZ not only provides structured approaches but also draws on past solutions to similar problems,” Narayan said. “It’s a powerful toolbox that sharpens your problem-solving skills and enables you to tackle challenges with greater effectiveness.”
During the hour-long problem-solving lecture, Narayan encouraged attendees to think through potential benefits and shortcomings that could impact their own research and experiments. His presentation pointed to exercise as an example of an action that offers health benefits but also poses injury risks and costs time, energy and money to do. The seminar was meant to blend theory with hands-on applications, Narayan said.
“I hope students begin to view their research through the lens of broader industry relevance and practical problem-solving,” Narayan said. “The goal is to encourage them to think beyond academic boundaries and apply these techniques to their day-to-day work.”
In previous sessions of the series, Narayan guided participants through methods to help them gauge the applicability of their research for industry, as well as gauge an idea for a potential startup. He also addressed the issue of pursuing research or product development only to realize that there is already a patent for it, and how to use tools for competitive analysis to avoid this problem.
