Seven Practices Identified Relating to Impacts in Industry-University Research

Seven key factors to collaboration success have been identified by researchers in results published in a MITSloan Management Review article.

The researchers identified that the impact of the industry-university collaboration is more important for companies than simply the research outcome.

In the article "Best Practices for Industry-University Collaboration", researchers Julio Pertuze, Edward Calder, Edward Greitzer and William Lucas note that businesses are interested in how new knowledge derived from a collaboration can contribute to its performance.

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative information provided by industry project managers and senior technologists, the researchers identified seven practices consistently found in industry-university research collaborations which have a substantive impact for the company.

They are:

• Defining the project's strategic context as part of the selection process;
• Selecting boundary-spanning project managers with key attributes such as in-depth knowledge of the technology needs in the field; inclination to network across functional and organisational boundaries and the abilities to make connections between research and opportunities for project applications;
• Sharing with the university team the vision of how the collaboration can help the company including selecting researchers who understand company practices and technology goals;
• Investing in long-term relationships;
• Establishing strong communicational linkages with the university team with regular face-to face meeting;
• Building broad awareness of the project within the company;
• And supporting with work internally both during and after the contract until the research is fully exploited.

"The message from this study thus goes beyond identifying the seven practices," noted the researchers.

"Merely talking a good game is not sufficient. What is needed is execution and follow-up of actions: longer term projects, continuing relationships, assigning project managers who make the contract feel like a partnership and enabling these managers to invest the time and effort to generate effective knowledge flows between the university and the company."

Permission for summarised article kindly provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010. Full article details: Pertuze J, Calder E, Greitzer E, Lucas W, (2010) Best Practices for Industry-University Collaboration, Summer 2010 Vol 51, No 4, pp83-90.
©2010 from MIT Sloan Management Review/Massachusetts Institute of Technology