Taken from The Proceedings of the XIX ISPIM Conference, Tours, France - 15-18 June 2008 ISBN 978-952-214-594-9.
The full paper and/or presentation is available to current members of ISPIM who must log in to the Members Section of http://www.ispim.org to gain access.
http://www.ispim.org/members/proceedings/ISPIM2008/anderson-anne-supporting-open-research-collaborations-between-universities-and-business--experiences-of-academics-and-business-docid779.doc
Supporting University-Business research collaborations: experiences of academics and companies
Abstract
University-business research collaborations are believed to produce economic benefits but little is known about advantages and disadvantages for the collaborators. A series of 26 in-depth interviews are reported, involving universities and business research collaborators. The interviews explored key advantages and disadvantages and revealed very positive reactions and a number of innovative outputs. Key advantages reported by academics included: Grounding research in real world settings; Complementary expertise; Facilitating access to key stakeholders; Building strong relationships with the commercial partners; Discipline of formal project structure. Key advantages reported by commercial partners included: Academic intellectual input; Skill mix in the consortia; Understanding users; Extended time-scale of projects. Active research collaborations were highly valued even by SMEs who would not be able to collaborate without financial support. The findings suggest that it would be advisable to support such collaborations which can lead to innovations.
Keywords
University-business links; Research collaborations; Interview analysis; Advantages for universities; Advantages for business; Open innovations; Support for collaboration.