Download - Practises in R and D
Stavros P. Thomas and Anderson A. Lucas
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Strengthening Industry-University Collaboration Universities can be the most critical resources in a company’s innovation strategy. However, to establish value creation and knowledge sharing from research, companies need to follow these nine rules. BY STAVROS P. THOMAS AND ANDERSON. LUCAS
MOST PREVIOUS STUDIES of industry-university collaboration have framed the analysis of
such alliances in terms of research project outcomes, defined here as a result that creates a business value
for a company, such as guidance for the direction of technology development. From a business point of
view, however, research outcome is of only a part of the complete success. What matters is not outcome
but impact on the market— on the customers or at least how the new knowledge derived from a
collaboration with a university can contribute to a company’s optimum performance. Are new products
or tools and practices have made possible? New and more effective manufacturing, operating and
management processes? Has already been produced innovative software or tools that enable greater
logistical efficiencies and risks management? What about the IPR framework that enhances open
innovation and knowledge sharing? And what about new design and processes?
Managers in the wind energy industry see working with academia as beneficial only to the extent that
it advances the company toward its goals. The focus of our research, therefore, was on the impact of the
potential alliances and synergistic interactions on organization products, processes or employees, as
evaluated both by the direct wind power industry managers of university projects and by senior technical
personnel employed in wind power plants. While managing the collaboration with universities, including
developing supporting schemes as the 'Engineer the Future' program in Denmark, are important, and
lengthy, precursors to the collaboration, this study primary strategic goals are:
• Establish mutually beneficial research collaborations.
• Increase synergies between students, companies and wind power sector organizations.
• Facilitate dialogue between students, faculty members, researchers and external research
collaborators.
Our strategy is concentrated on four areas
1. Matchmaking
2. Increasing focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in education
3. Seamless commercialization and technology transfer processes
4. Enhancing strategic dialogue with private enterprise
Collaborations between university researchers
and companies can result in project outcomes
that have a major impact on a
THE LEADING QUESTION How can companies achieve reasonable influence from industry-university research col-laborations? FINDINGS
There is a significant gap in academic intuitions
collaborations: Promising outcomes of university projects often fail to translate into tangible impacts for the companies involved. Nine best practices
are our proposed
solution to layer this
gap.
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
ABOUT THE RESEARCH This article reports the
results of a two-year study
aimed at determining the
reflection of research
collaborations between the
academy and industrial
partners and last yet not
least, reveal the best
practices for industry-
university partnerships
Data were collected at 27
research-intensive
multinational companies
from the wind power,
information technology,
materials, consumer
electronics, automotive,
pharmaceutical, and fishery
industries. Seven
questionnaires and surveys
were conducted for more
than 50 university projects
sponsored-funded by the
companies. We asked the compa-
nies involved in this
research, to provide
examples both of
successful projects and
those that failed to meet
expectations. We
determined the satisfaction
of the collaboration with a
series of questions on two
distinct levels: (1) Did the
collaboration achieve what
it set out to do and if so,
(2) What were the
consequences for the
company? The former
gave information that
related to the project’s
outcome. The latter en-
abled evaluation of the
project’s subsequent im-
pact on the company.
Quantitative and qualita-
tive information regarding
the levels of success of
the collaborations were
obtained, leading to our
identification of nine
practices for managing
such collaborations.
Considerable attention has been paid in recent years
to the transformative nature for the educational
institutions and industry with regards to the strategic
partnerships. Much of the discussion has focused on
the characteristics of the institutional policies and
regulations needed to initiate, develop and establish
an effective research collaboration framework. Since
2000 several EU Commission taxonomies have also
been developed to distinguish the most important
parameters between the outcomes of collaboration for
both parties involved and assess the various economic
and social benefits as a whole.
With this report, we pursued to determine, in a
measurable way, “best practices” for the selection
process — the management and the development of
relationships that enable a company to start a research
partnership with a university and to evaluate the
outcomes of this collaboration to the industry, the
economy, the local region or society. To identify the best practices and their potential
effects, we surveyed more than 50 projects at 27
multinational companies that engage in research
collaborations with several universities in the EU
zone.
By using qualitative and critical thinking
questionaries’ we identified seven practices that had a
significant and fully applicable impact for the
industry-university research collaborations success.
The first four practices are related to criteria for
selecting the strategic collaboration in the first place.
These practices provide the foundation for the
selection and management criteria of the educational
institutions research procedures to the company. The
last three address issues of project management and
also provide insights on the structural framework
required to establish internationally competitive and
interdisciplinary research platforms..
Although the specific focus was on wind power
industry’s collaborations with academia, these lessons
have broader applicability. Indeed, this set of best
practices could apply to management and integration
into a company of any externally performed research.
These outcomes may thus also be applicable to
collaborations with non-university research
organizations such as government laboratories and
nonprofit organizations.
This work was a result of the main observation that
industry-university collaborations often produce
interesting outcomes and innovative solutions but
those outcomes have minor or no impact on company
productivity or competitiveness. The main scope is to
establish internationally competitive, interdisciplinary
research platforms with constructive synergies
between the industry and academies. These may offer
the opportunity to solve urgent challenges facing
society and industry itself. Hence, by organizing
workshops, where individuals (students, investors,
and managers, as well as management from
companies and the Academia) can meet and establish
research platforms.
Integrating entrepreneurship and practical knowledge
into the academies could bridge the gap between
commercialization and practicality-applicability.
Develop an ecosystem to support student start-ups,
as an integral part of our education system.
Establish interdisciplinary summer schools focused
on innovation.
Set up master’s programs and industrial doctoral
which integrate entrepreneurship and innovation
with an academic discipline.
Enhance students’ focus on new ideas by
supporting their participation in events based on
entrepreneurship and innovation
However, a partnership between an academic
institution and a company which concludes that a
proposed method is the right tool to solve an issue or
mitigate a risk, fails to seek answers to several
important questions such as:
What is the nature of the activity in which
universities engage in collaborative research?
What are the distinctive features of the
learning associated with teaching and
research?
What are the public as opposed to the private
benefits from such learning?
Who should therefore pay for the costs
incurred?
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
Executive Director, Anthony M.
Boccanfuso, in his book Researcher
Guidebook highlights the most
important parameters to allow for
mutual benefit during the negotiation
of sponsored research agreements
between institutions and companies.
•High-value, or in other words high-
return institutional-industrial
research is collaborative and, thus,
requires management from both
parties.
•Collaborative research programs
involving small businesses are
different than those with large
corporations.
•Differences in approaches to legal
policy and intellectual property (IP)
policy in institutional-industrial
research collaborations may
occurred and therefore require
substantial discussions within and
between the collaborating
organizations to be handled
successfully.
•A central office within each
organization specifically dedicated
to coordinating efforts to enhance
research collaboration is a useful and
necessary resource at both
institutions and industrial
organizations.
•Better results accumulate when
partnering is structured for long-term
relationships as opposed to short-
term, one-time projects.
•Metrics for evaluating these collaborations should
transcend the size of an award to an institution or the
development of a new commercial product; rather,
many other factors may contribute to success, such as
workforce development, access to specialized
equipment and other factors of importance to the
parties.
•Very few institutional-industrial collaborations are
identical and both parties need to recognize the
inherent organizational qualities affecting any
collaboration.
•Most research institutions have a history of working
with industry and pursue
ANEMORPHOSIS RESEARCH GROUP REVIEW
THE NINE KEYS TO COLLABORATION SUCCESS
approaches that mirror their institutions’ value and
culture. The same is true for industry, some
companies have a long history of institutional
engagement; others do not. to the university team
ideas, suggestions and potential linkages to other
company activities.
Companies may have physical resources that an
institution cannot access any other way. Companies
are typically interested in questions that require
applied research, which can be difficult to fund
through most EU funding sources. When an
institutional laboratory is interested in pursuing
applied research or experiments that lead to product
development, non-industry funding sources may be
limited.
Companies can bring tacit knowledge of the product
development process, which is otherwise proprietary
and generally unattainable to the academic
community. Corporate partners can bring experience
to a collaboration that can provide the foresight to
prevent a PI from committing mistakes already made
in industry.
On the basis of this research, we propose nine
practices that organizations and companies should
follow to get the most value out of their investigation
collaborations with industry. While following this set
of practices will not guarantee success in such
partnerships, it will help company R&D managers
and universities teams to identify the drawbacks that
affected many partnerships and last but not least,
realize more of their business potential. Taken
together, these practices can measurably improve the
capability of industry-university collaboration to have
positive reflection on company products and
processes.
When a partnership relationship is established
between an institution and an industry partner, has the
potential to inflate along with corporate expansion to
generate new research collaborations, improved
capabilities and contribute to the further success and
growth of the segment in general.
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
Industry-university collaborations must be aligned with the company’s
research and development strategy and address a tangible need of the
organization. If not, there is high risk of investing time and money in
projects that have little or no impact. A senior researcher stated: “I
wish someone had told me the right objectives of my research when I
was just getting started” Thus, it is crucial to ensure that there is a an
absolutely clear objective of the project and that the organization’s
commercial strategy and research collaboration are well determined.”
The most important part of this practice is to establish a reliable and
consistent vision within the company about what the university project
will provide to the industry or the company itself. University research
that lacks both a link to the company’s R&D portfolio and a company
unit that cares about the result is unlikely to be given enough attention
to prove useful.
University projects with links to internal company interests create a
strong continuing basis for collaboration when the research
complements the company’s own R&D or when the project is consid-
ered important for the company’s technological
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Several mechanisms and
tactics could successfully
establish innovation and
collaboration with research
institutions in order to
sustain profitable growth
and innovation.
1Access to Resources. Institutions can provide
tangible and intangible
resources to solve a
problem industry may not
currently have the time,
expertise, or facilities to do
in-house, while offering a
valuable IP portfolio is also
an advantage.
2Geographic Diversity. Collaborations are able to
layer geographic barriers
through site visits, personnel
exchanges, placements and
internships opportunities.
3 Time Management. Short time frames are
the most preferable option among industries while long-term contracts is the choice of the academy.
4Types of Knowledge
Sharing: knowledge management,
knowledge mobilization, knowledge exchange, knowledge transfer, knowledge to action and others.
5 Technology
Licensing. Institutional licensing
organizations are very few
and far between. However,
several institutions have
made dramatic changes to
their industry-sponsored
research and IP policies
6 Creating Long-Term
Relationships. Key factors for successful
institutional-industrial
collaborative arrangements
include:
•Compatible Partner
Selection
•Initial Planning and
Structuring of the
Collaborative
Arrangements •Proper Implementation of
the Project and its
Deliverables
Clear and concise objectives are critical to project
success because they help ensure that project
stakeholders will develop a:
• Common understanding of what the project is
attempting to do, and
• Commitment to the same objectives.
An objective should be written in a way that it can
be evaluated at the conclusion of a project to see
whether it was achieved. A well-worded objective
will be Specific, Measurable, Attainable /
Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART).
Note that the objective should be specific,
measurable achievable and realistic. In general,
objectives should conclude the deliverables of the
project.
Moreover, having a company executive as a
responsible person for the project can be helpful in
terms of support, 2
but there is no evidence that this
could be an important factor for a strong
connection of the university team with the
company research and development strategy. For
the research uptake to have impact the issue is not
whether there is support at a high level; it is
whether the project addresses a real need as
perceived by the company’s working engineers. This latter fact is verified by a pragmatic paradigm
of a collaboration sponsored by a wind energy
engineering company. The partnership established
from a suggestion by a member of the board of
directors who thought it would be useful to have a
strong connection to a prestigious university
laboratory with a major research presence in the field.
The senior management staff agreed and provided
funds for a project proposed by the head of the
laboratory. The wind power company supported the
project for four years, some of the work has been
performed using company’s IT tools and the project
produced several publications. From the university
perspective, the project was challenging and the
results were informative and instructive, leading to
better understanding of the CoE mitigation in the
O&M for wind energy plants. However, both parties
failed to identify the pragmatic problems and
challenges the wind power company faced or the
associated constraints on their O&M processes. Thus,
they took no ownership of the project and paid no
considerable attention to its results, despite the strong
desire of the university team to implement the
proposed solution in realistic terms.
Outsourced development projects are principally
complex, as they cross both external (industrial-vendor)
and internal boundaries (among universities groups and
members of the organization). The boundary spanning
practice to assess the quality of the external and internal
synergies among the groups involved is a significantly
important factor on the success of the collaboration
between institutions and organizations. The foundational
scope of a collaborated research project is to provide a
deeper insight into possible solutions that may lay in an
organization’s structure and culture, often beyond the
project’s lifetime. The focus on quality of
communication and internal -external synergies
effectiveness could make an important contribution on
project management and inter-organizational
collaborations in general.
Early studies focused on communication practices
effectiveness to analyze how boundary spanning parties
interact internally or externally (e.g., Ancona and
Caldwell, 1988; Sawyer, Guinan and Cooprider, 2008;
Friedman and Podolny, 1992) and how their behavior
affects the collaboration performance as a whole.
These “boundary spanners” is the cornerstone by which
knowledge is acquired from external sources and
distributed among the organization. Companies
dependent on IT for example, significantly rely on a
particular category of boundary spanner — the IT
boundary spanner — to acquire and implement this
technology successfully. Operative IT boundary
spanners, are critical factors to facilitate knowledge
sharing and value creation.
Boundary spanning contributes to the success of
industry-university partnership in two principal ways.
First, there is an extensive distribution of the research
outcomes inside the organization. Second, may provide
feedback to the research groups through information
acquired from the company’s technical community, an
innovative mechanism for keeping the research aligned
with the organization’s needs. A boundary spanning example was found in
collaboration between a university and IT company. The
company’s project manager was a senior developer in the
R&D department and the university PhD project was
seen as basic, common research, far away from
producing anything that would affect company’s
operation or productivity. However, the project manager
decided to visit individuals in the company’s
manufacturing operations, as a part of an internal
motivation strategy procedure. These real time
interactions and dialogue in turn led to new proposals
about how the next IT tools might be evolved and
integrated into the development process. They also
provided valuable information on the best direction for
the project to be proceed, a direction the project
manager,
himself, would not otherwise have considered. As the
above paradigm demonstrates, openness, creativity,
interaction and dialogue could successfully establish
the diversity of ideas, facilitate the knowledge transfer
process and last but not least, enhance critical
thinking and ideas generation among the parties
involved in the research. The most common tools and
methodologies to ensure boundary spanning are the
internal technical presentations, continuously training
and employee participation in technical conferences,
seminars and webinars.
Distributed Sense-making in Boundary-Spanning Groups
These practices should also facilitate the
identification of new ideas, mechanisms and
applications that could also lead to challenging and
interesting-not envisioned in the original objective
statement. It is significantly important to ensure that
openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and
agreeableness are well defined prior the collaboration
process.
The outcomes of the survey conducted; show that
academic research is more likely to have positive
impact on a company if the research community has a
good knowledge of the business strategic objectives,
company’s practices-methodologies and how the
research performed match up with the company's
business objectives. These circumstances occurred
more often when university researchers had a
previous experience or involved in the same or similar
industry projects during their career. Their
professional experience could provide them the
insight into bridging the gaps between research
procedures and industry practices. If university
researchers do not already have this background, the
project manager should provide that knowledge to
them via training, seminars or collaboration with
other professionals in their field.
However, it is true that some managers prefer not
to reveal the pragmatic scope and goals of the
research to the university researchers. This could be
happened because of the potential concerns about
losing a competitive edge in science and technology.
To have a better understanding of the justification of openness in
science, it will be useful to consider information sharing as an
aspect of social epistemology. The principle instructs inquirers to
share information, which helps to promote the epistemological
goals of the group, such as truth, avoidance of error, knowledge,
and explanation. There are several ways that openness
promotes the goals of science; however, it is also important to
identify the potential conflicts between internal and external
science fields.
Again, a company from the wind power industry was
the real life example of this “secrecy” phenomenon.
The company set up a three-year project with a
University in Denmark to analyze the most
economically and technical efficient solution for the
energy yield assessment in offshore wind power
facilities. The company project manager shared the
specific company needs, but did not realistically
explain how the project outcomes could fit into the
company’s CoE mitigation strategy. The project
manager informed us that this was a clear choice; the
organization, he said, “is really concerned when it
comes to revealing its technology strategy.” The
correspondent result was that the outcomes delivered
by the two researchers met the need in a way that was
not consistent and reliable with other strategic
considerations and thus, no value to the company
released.
Although openness has considerable influence
over academic research, secrecy rules industrial
research. Companies treat scientific research as trade
secrets, and usually share data and results only to
meet legal requirements or achieve financial goals.
Companies use knowledge for competitive advantage,
and treat information as proprietary. If a scientist
works for a company, he or she usually signs a non-
disclosure agreement (NDA), which obligates him or
her not to disclose any information obtained during
employment without the company’s permission.
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Ray Dart, Director and Associate Professor of the
Business Administration Program at Trent University
listed some critical questions with regards to the long
term partnerships between academia and industry.
Through the proposed collaboration how will the
group better and more efficiently connect with
other groups of people or communities?
Are these connections strategic enough to help the
collaborators succeed?
What impact does a smaller connection?
Who will do what project?
Who will commit their resources (people,
monetary, etc) to which aspects?
Industry and university institutions conduct research on
different time slots. Industry is usually driven by
economic and product life-cycle, while academic
research projects duration depends largely on the time
required for a postgraduate program. Both parties, thus
should be open and realistic with regards to the time
frames required. The development of multi-year
collaboration programs, such as the Danish Engineer
campaign-the technological alliance that bring together
Danish engineers and technology experts could layer the
time frame gaps. It is crucial to understand that only via
longer collaboration time periods; research teams
develop better understanding of the research problem and
the goals of their investigation. According to the results
of the survey, the effects of long term collaborations are:
Improve the knowledge in many scientific fields
Be always open to the world through what we call
“open innovation”
Create from upstream new models for evaluation of
the actives safety and performance, by using very
varied tools and methods
Tackle societal challenges
Establish Science excellence
In order for an institutional-industrial relationship to
be truly successful, there needs to be regular and
frequent communication between the parties. These
interaction channels could facilitate information flow
and effectively clear up misunderstandings and
confusion and help build a solid relationship. Personal
interactions, interviews and presentations are also
crucial in the transmission of unspecified objectives
such as details of design or development practices and
thus, foster the success of the collaboration.
Working with the survey results we concluded that
one of the most important keys to establish project
progress efficiency has been “a lot of
communication“ – in terms of what works, what does
not work, from where the information is originated,
are the outcomes realistic etc. A plethora of useful
attitudes coming along with the opinions of other
parties and thus keeping the communications line
open is a part of a multi-purpose process.
Therefore, a communication plan is important to
realize the full potential of the collaboration, keep
things rolling and helping to prevent the project itself
from drifting away from its original purpose. The key
aspects of such a plan may include: A kick-off
meeting, regular informal progress meetings (weekly
or monthly, by phone, skype or in person, if possible),
a formal update meeting, periodic reports
management, and a final close-out meeting.
What it is more; companies are improving their
collaboration tactics with universities by sending their
personnel experts on extended stays as visiting
scientists, or by providing internship opportunities for
graduate students, placements, seminars, training,
webinars, etc.
Establishing and maintaining project awareness
within the industry is vital to an organization’s
progress and success. A robust and properly
implemented awareness framework could assist the
organization with the education, monitoring, and
ongoing challenges of their portfolio. Throughout the
research we concluded that project awareness should
focuses primarily on the following best practices:
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
Organizational Awareness: A successful awareness
framework may include assembling a set of
awareness practices, metrics, and appropriate training
content that may also increase the research’s impact
for the company.
Awareness Content: Determining the different roles
within an organization is the first step to developing
the appropriate type of content and will also help
determine the information that should be included in
the research.
Awareness Checklist: Establishing a checklist may
help the organization and researcher when
developing, monitoring, and/or maintaining a tool or a
method to make the necessary changes prior project
competition.
As a result of this awareness framework, the
university researchers could acquire valuable and
precise suggestions from other point of views and
perspectives than these of the project manager’s
perception. Wolfgang Reinhardt in his article Understanding the
meaning of awareness in Research Networks
categorizes the term awareness in six different forms.
(activity, cultural, social, workplace, location, and
knowledge awareness). He also concludes that based
on regular meetings and intensive collaborative work,
project members are able to develop mutual
awareness in multiple aspects, which could hardly be
gained by outsiders to the same extent. This
awareness often goes beyond the pure project-related
issues and spans social, personal, and relational
issues; it also strengthens the personal ties between
project members and participating affiliations.
Initial planning and structuring of the collaborative
support is fundamental aspect in partnerships between
academy and industry. The internal planning and the
associated administrative structures and processes help
prevent project and administration misunderstandings
which can jeopardize relationships and prevent future
collaboration.
One other way to accomplish this is to develop an
internal support mechanism—a set of support
mechanisms—within the organization that recognizes
the value of the collaboration and is willing to continue
support future projects. Strong and meaningful personal
relationships operate as a catalyst for improving
knowledge creation and information flows. If this is
the case, the parties involved are more willing to
invest significant time and effort in building
constructive interactions and knowledge sharing
frameworks. However, when some team members
already know and trust one another, they can become
nodes. Looking closely at our data, we discovered that
when 45% to 65% of the collaboration team members
were already well connected to one another, the team
had strong partnership insights.
In sum, the most effective industry-academy
collaborations are those characterized by a sense of
partnership internal support intelligence — where
intelligence serves as a common set of tools and
practices where managers and researchers are partners or
collogues investigating an area or research and propose
solutions together. On the other hand, there are managers
who are not willing to share their knowledge or spent a
significant period of time helping and interacting with
researchers. Those kinds of collaborations seemed to
produce problematic and poor outcomes than research
projects in which project management needs were
entirely supported. Insufficient internal support serves as
a problematic portfolio management with negative
influence on the collaborations.
-UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIONS There are many terms used to describe the processes of knowledge
sharing. These include knowledge management, knowledge
mobilization, knowledge exchange, knowledge transfer, knowledge to
action and others. However, network relationships and support effects
collaboration dynamics and behaviors within the knowledge network —
which in turn influence the research outcomes.
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Differences in approaches to policy requirements and
intellectual property rights (IPR) in institutional-
industrial research collaborations require considerable
discussions within and between the collaborating
organizations to be handled successfully. When
entering into a sponsored research relationship, both
parties should consider any existing related IP that
may be owned by either party and how such is being
protected (i.e., patents, copyrights, trade secret). This
is typically referred to as background intellectual
property (BIP). Engage your Technology Transfer
Office (TTO) staff if any BIP is to be used.
In his Researcher Guidebook, Executive Director,
Anthony M. Boccanfuso mentions:
Consulting agreements may include contractual
obligations regarding IP and copyrights resulting
from services provided during the consulting period.
The terms should be reviewed by appropriate
administrators to make sure that they do not conflict
with your institution’s policy on IP.
Issues to consider include:
The obligation to the institution with the
provisions of institutional IP policy taking precedence
over consulting arrangements with a third party;
The need to maintain a detailed disclosure of
discoveries and inventions that are the result of
consulting activities and which may have commercial
value and/or utility;
Adherence to institutional policies/guidelines for
the establishment and ownership of inventions,
discoveries, and copyrighted materials.
According to the code of ethics in Academic
Research, both parties, industry and university
researchers, should have a holistic approach with
regards to the research design regulations,
methodology and ethics approvals, equipment use,
data management, record keeping, data protection and
publication, the appropriate use of licensed research
resources and respect for the intellectual property
rights of third parties. Some researchers may have
come across the concept of Creative Commons
licences which allow creators to communicate the
rights which they wish to keep and the rights which
they wish to waive in order for other people to make
re-use of their intellectual properties more
straightforward.
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU
Openness is one of the most important principles of
successful collaborations between academies and
organizations. It is a necessary ingredient for
achieving the goals of a research project and for
enabling organization and society to benefit from the
outcomes of the investigation conducted. It promotes
innovation and value creation while enhance
knowledge management. Additionally, openness is
important for researchers to evaluate their scientific
ethos metrics according to the specified IPR
requirements. The true openness brings great
opportunities for parties, academia and industry.
While openness is considered to be a critical
parameter for a research project, information
exchange is undoubtedly another key pillar in the
ethics of research. However, sharing scientific
knowledge is not the common practice. This is
because IPR or privacy regulation may serve different
purposes, even non-epistemic ones. Conflicts
between openness and secrecy may be internal to
science or external to science and thus, a negative
impact on the collaboration of institutions and
industry could be occurred. To deal with these
conflicts, the researcher and project manager,
together, should precisely define the objectives of the
project, the desirable outcomes and the available
information that could provide reliable data analysis.
Research collaboration between academies and
companies is not a simple task. There is a plethora of
stakeholders and associated mechanisms to be very
carefully considered to establish project success and
constructive synergistic relationships.
Some organizations, however, are well aware of the
pragmatic importance of the proposed practices, but
somehow they failed to implement them in real life
projects. As an indicative paradigm of this
observation, at one company, all answers regarding
the importance of informal communications and
information flows were positive, but the company as a
whole never made an effort to manage the
information flows and knowledge sharing during their
collaboration with a UK institution. The message from this survey goes beyond the
main scope of the best practices identification for
effective partnerships and alliances between the
industry and the academy. What is needed is
implementation and follow-up of the suggestions
from the bibliography available: longer-term research
projects with well-established relationships, dedicated
project managers who shares and create values like a
real partner or colleague between the university and
the company. Stavros Thomas holds a Master Diploma in Wind
Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark
(DTU) and a Computer Science Degree from the
University of Portsmouth, UK. He currently serves as
the Leader of the Anemorphosis Research Group with
main scope to improve the applicability of IT tools in
wind energy facilities and optimize the Portfolio
Management procedures. Anderson Lucas holds a
Master diploma in Business Administration and
currently serves as a manager at InvestIT, a consulting
firm in London, UK, specializing in business innovation.
Comment on this article or contact the authors through
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We really appreciate the trust and encouragement of the
staff that participated in this study. They very kindly
provided us access to sensitive information concerning
their interactions with universities and shared with us
critical information with regards to their strategic objectives
and their best practices. Some of the companies surveyed
have created true win-win collaborations with university
partners. We also acknowledge the contributions during
the early stages of this study of Maria Beniteth of City
University in London, UK.
1. Gray, D., (2004). “Managing the Industry/University
Cooperative Research Centers”, The International
Intellectual Property Institute, Press Release,
February 2, 2004.
2. Mowery, D. (2009). “University-Industry
Relationships in the Knowledge-Based Economy:
How Useful is the ‘BayhDole Model’?, in van
Geenhuizen, et al., pp. 18-41.
3. Orphanides, P., D. Gleitman, N. Formanek, T.
Williams, (2007). “Accelerating the Licensing Process
for To-BeDeveloped Technologies”, les Nouvelles,
XLII (1), (March).
4. R. Reagans and B. McEvily, “Network Structure
and Knowledge Transfer: The Effects of Cohesion
and Range,” Administrative Science Quarterly 48, no.
2 (2003): 240-267
5. Anthony M. Boccanfuso, A Guide for Successful
Institutional-Industrial Collaborations, Georgia Tech
Research Corporation | Atlanta, Georgia 30318, 2012
Copyright © Anemorphosis Investigation Group. All
rights reserved. 2015
ANEMORPHOSIS EDU