When FIRP Lab. was awarded the FUNDACITE prize in 1995, it was in a period of mutation and growth, and diversification of the covered topics. By the late 1990’s FIRP Lab. associates from the School of Chemical Engineering were working on many new topics in emulsion science: drilling fluids, asphalt emulsions, crude oil demulsification and desalting. Researchers from other ULA colleges (Sciences, Pharmacy, Medecine) joined FIRP Lab. with projects dealing with emulsion and foam uses in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, foodstuffs, paints, detergents and cleaning products. In spite of the increase in the number of topics and new industrial partners, FIRP Lab. associates kept a strong cohesion and tight organization to optimize ressources and form a generation of new researchers, particularly through an international cooperation effort with R&D centers in Europe and USA.
In 2000 FIRP group was an association of over 25 professores from ULA, among them 16 had a PhD and 8 a previous work experience in industry. At this time the group was organized according to a small business guidelines, to increase the time dedicated to R&D, to improve the overall efficiency and to generate research funding through contracts in order to reduce the dependency on the conventional financing from the state agency CONICIT-FONACIT and the university research council CDCHT. FIRP Lab. changed its name, so that FIRP became Formulation, Interfaces, Rheology and Processes, whose abbreviation is the same in many languages. The new name also explicited the wider coverage and stressed our expertise in “Formulation” of systems exhibiting “Interfaces” as well as our engineering experience in handling a variety of “Processes”.
Today, FIRP group is an association of over two dozens of teacher-researchers who work in different laboratories in diverse colleges at ULA, in a coordinated way to take care of various activities:
(1) Applied research and developement which is carried out as contracts through UAPIT-ULA (Unidad de Asesoría e Innovación Tecnológica) or directly as FIRP Lab. projects, which offer our expertise and know-how to solve our industrial partners real-world problems. This is not only with PDVSA and some other major petroleum producers, but also for service companies associated to oil production (crude dehydration or desalting, viscosity reduction, emulsified transport, catalytic nanoemulsions, drilling fluids, pollution remediation, emulsified fuels). These services are as well for the non-petroleum chemical industry with projects on formulation issues in paints (waterborne akyld paints), self emulsifying insecticide concentrates, cutting and laminating (emulsified) oils, tooth pastes, cosmetics, vaccines, sunscreen lotions, desinfectant soaps, etc... These activities cover 50% of the time of our labor force, offer a top notch technical service which is not easily available in Venezuela and elsewhere, particularly in the formulation of complex systems, contribute to fund our basic research activities, and provide a training to our young personnal on how to attain down-the-bench solutions.
(2) Fundamental Research whose goal is to create knowledge, to form researchers through graduate studies, to generate advances in the understanding of mechanims and phenomena, and to produce publications. Many of our fundamental research projects are related to our applied R&D activities and oriented to enhance our expertise in understanding problems and produce solutions. These activities occupy about 30% of the time of our teams, and not only improve our knowledge, but also contribute to fulfill some requirements (dissertations, PPI, PEI, publications) and bring evidence about our standing in the national and international scientific community.
(3) Formation and training of university and industry human ressources:
- First through the teaching of conventional undergraduate and graduate courses at ULA and other universities in Venezuela and abroad through cooperative agreements, particularly to carry out “sandwich” doctoral research ventures.
- Secondly, through custom-made continuous education courses targeted at the employees of our industrial partners in Venezuela and abroad. Over 2000 people attended a variety of courses and training, most of them in typical one-week courses, but also with some “a la carte” programs lasting from 1 day to 11 months. These include custom-made in-house courses for transnational companies worldwide, or specialist formulator training for special purpose (PPEQ program from the Venezuelan Ministry of Science and Technoloy).
- Third, the tutorial research programs for ULA and other Venezuelan universities. In the past 10 years FIRP Lab. associates supervised 60 undergraduate microthesis (part time research during the BS 5th year), 20 Masters’ thesis and 10 doctoral dissertations. Today, the main purpose of these programs is to strengthen some established Labs as Separaciones por Membranas in ULA and Petroquímica y Surfactantes in LUZ, and consolidate the creation of new groups such as Sistemas Dispersos y Ambiente in UDO, and Fenómenos Interfaciales in USB, Polímeros y Coloides in ULA and Asfaltenos y Surfactantes Naturales in UC.
- The forth aim is to prepare and edit teaching materials for conventional or continuous education courses such as conference aids (over 150 power point presentations), hanbook or textbook review material (20 chapters in international circulation books), or self-studying leaflets (over 50 FIRP booklets, most of them freely downloadable from our web page).
(4) Development of scientific equipments thanks to a close cooperation with CITEC-ULA (Center for Tecnological Innovation) workshops, and the backing of practical projects such as Agenda Petróleo. Up to now we have developed 4 pieces of equipement: a spinning drop tensiometer, a laboratory electrostatic dehydrator, a falling ball viscometer, and a high temperature high pressure foameter column. The two first equipments are currently available for sale from CITEC at a cost for academic centers which is much below the international price.
The originality in FIRP Lab. business is its organization and operation much alike a smalll private company, which is quite unique in the university world. The organization is not hierarchical but rather associative with a strong interactions between peers. New teams are organized to carry out each new activity, trying to maximize the use of everybody aptitude, experience and expertise. The essential management decisions are based on capability and comon sense, and on a clear association of expertise with authority. Our senior researchers have learned to carry out a sound accounting of the use of time and money, and to evaluate the value of the know-how, so that contracts could be discussed to target a win-win agreement with our industrial partners. FIRP Lab. is an association of human and material ressources in which a strong synergy allows the total to exceed the sum of the parts, in particular as far as the diagnostic and solution of problems are concerned. The current organization tries to provide FIRP Lab. associates with the feeling there are much better off in than out of it, as the best warranty of cohesion and acheivement.
