University-Industry Collaboration

This research was funded by, and implemented within, a UK national research organisation, while the author was the KE and Impact Evaluation Manager responsible for assessing impact on a £15m UK government-funded research programme.

This work was also submitted as the authors MBA dissertation which was accepted and awarded in 2009.

ABSTRACT: A methodology and methods ‘toolbox’ is proposed for conducting impact research and assessment from within research programmes. The emphasis is upon how to clarify and assess the wider impacts from the early stages onwards.

The approach explicitly acknowledges, and attempts to address, the known issues and challenges of impact assessment while drawing upon the resources and opportunities available to research managers and researchers within such programmes.

The study has two triangulating foundations. Firstly, it examines the academic literature to help identify and design the pilot methodology and methods. Secondly it trials these in a real programme to both test and improve them.

The study was conducted over one year within one leading UK research organisation, where two research programmes (and around 60 research projects of £15m total value) were being assessed for their impacts. The study draws upon actual impact management experience and reflection, prospective (ex ante) and retrospective (ex post) assessments, participatory contributions from leading researchers undergoing assessment, and consultation with external users. The findings of this study outline the pilot and its first iteration. Recommendations are made for improvement to the methodology and methods.

A subsequent follow-on bid to UK government incorporating the impacts identified from implementing this methodology, successfully led to a further £15m of government funding.

It is expected the pilot methodology and methods will be applicable to other organisations, conducting and funding such research programmes, required to research and assess the wider research impacts.

Although primary focus of implemetation trials was upon research in physical sciences, technology, high-tech engineering, computing/IT, and environment, the wider literature study, the methodology design and justification, the methods proposed and used, and the resulting general recommendations and lessons are expected to apply more broadly to many other research areas, where the impact is to be found more widely in the society, economy, government or public sector or within organizations, policies, professions or the public.

Interest in this work is expected from research programme managers, impact managers and assessors, management consultants advising in this area, and government funding managers, all seeking to embed a developing approach to understand, capture, and enhance wider impact.

The Textile Toolbox: New Design Thinking, Materials & Processes for Sustainable Fashion Textiles reviews the design research conducted between June 2011 and May 2015 by a team of University of the Arts London (UAL) textile researchers, led by Professor Rebecca Earley, who are part of the Swedish funded multi-disciplinary Mistra Future Fashion (MFF) consortium. The objective of the consortium is to research opportunities to advance a more sustainable and competitive fashion industry.

In the era of the 21st century, the best higher education institutions have more than one role. Not only do they educate and train students but they also create new ideas and knowledge for the short-term contemporary issues as well as long-term complex problems. In the strategic goals, five aspects are critical in higher education: the democratization of knowledge and access, the contestability of the market and funding, the research technologies, the global mobility and the integration with the industry. Universities should have strategic plans including strategic goals. In this study, the strategic models and plans of the public (5) and private (5) universities are analysed from the five different aspects. In order to deeply understand the dynamics at these universities, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is preferred. University leaders
and managerial departments should consider market needs and do strategic plan accordingly. Hence, they should develop the strategic thinking capacity of both their academic staff and researchers for short and long terms need of the industry. Results have shown that most universities have wrong perception regarding the strategic model and plan. Neither private nor public universities possess enough knowledge on the subject.
Keywords: Higher education, university and industry partnership, strategic model and planning, higher education management, financing of higher education.

This report documents the results of a research aimed to explore the current university industry interaction works in Ethiopian universities, identify the main challenges in the process of establishing good interaction and propose ways for promoting collaboration works between industries and the whole academia in general and universities in particular.
The study presents the university perspective of university-industry interactions with emphasis on types of interactions, barriers to successful interactions and promotional measures to improve interactions.
The study shows that university-industry linkage is at a growing stage in Ethiopian universities while it has long distance to go forward, as can be seen from international experience. The common types of university-industry interactions were limited to what can be regarded as conventional types as the predominant types of university interactions with industry consisted of student internship program, consultancies and training programmes.
Lack of laboratory facilities, inadequate infrastructures (like communication, transport, journals, books, etc), time constraint due to heavy teaching load and lack of strong industry linkage offices are identified by the academics as the main barriers for collaboration with industries. Moreover, improving laboratory facilities, conducting workshops for industry staff, encouraging regular industry visits by academics and setting up strong and decentralized industry linkage offices are identified by the academics as the main measures to promote collaboration with industries.

As university–industry cooperation is associated with the transfer of knowledge and technology, this collaboration is an extremely important field of study for the world's economies that helps companies become more competitive. The present research, thus, sought to explore and analyse the literature related to university–industry cooperation, using a co-citation analysis. This study's objectives were to (1) identify the main co-cited references and the groups (i.e. clusters) they form and (2) discuss the challenges this literature presented in the study of university–industry cooperation. The articles reviewed were obtained with a search of the ISI's Web of Science and were submitted to a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer software. This systematic literature review revealed that companies are increasingly focused on cooperation with universities. The results include four clusters, namely, (1) Absorption Capacity, Knowledge and Competitiveness in University–Industry Relations, (2) Impact of Knowledge Spill-overs on University–Industry Relations, (3) Strategic Alliances for Industry Innovation, and (4) University–Industry Cooperation. This study thus contributes to a greater and more detailed understanding of the production flow, scientific practices, and trends in this new and stimulating field of research.

Early career academics face their own particular set of issues when it comes to struggling with the neoliberal university. In this note, we consider how our responses to the neoliberalization of academia – whether in teaching, research or other activities – promote justice or not. Rather than theorize justice in the abstract, our goal is to tease apart the injustices, vulnerabilities and complicities of our workplaces. We draw upon our individual experiences, which span six institutions across six countries, to explore how mundane choices and everyday actions might enable us to resist the neoliberal pressures on our work and our labour. We do this by acknowledging that there is a real possibility that we come to embody neoliberalism in our choices, decisions and habits. That is, we are disciplined and become self-disciplining in turn, in order to survive. We explore this tension through a series of experiential vignettes that help to frame our everyday resistance as 'tim-adical' action, both radical and timid at the same time.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an evaluation framework for university-industry collaborative research and technological initiative at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, by identifying the success criteria of university-industry collaborative research and technological initiative as perceived by academics. Five type of research collaboration mechanisms, which are; Consultancy and Technical Services Provision, Cooperative R&D Agreement, Licensing, Contract Research, and Spin-off Companies discussed and success criteria for each mechanism adopted from previous models in other countries. Based on these data, initial framework proposed. This study provides a framework to assess success of research collaboration activities from perception of academics. It’s useful for improving management of research collaboration activities in universities.

Knowledge transfer between universities and organizations is essential, not only for the organizations involved but also for the broader innovation system. Understanding the factors that drive or inhibit this process thus becomes a priority. Yet, the increasingly prolific academic literature dealing with university-business cooperation possesses a strong focus on barriers rather than drivers and only examines few of the cooperation activities that exist in practice. This paper offers a comprehensive review and analysis of an extensive set of barriers and drivers across seven university-business cooperation activities with a large sample of European academics from 33 countries. Results highlight that while the identified drivers significantly affect the development of all cooperation activities, barriers have more diverse effects. While significantly limiting research and valorization activities, they barely impact cooperation in education. Additionally, results show that even if academics perceive no barriers they still may not cooperate with business if there are no drivers in place. This paper concludes by discussing the relevant implications for research, management and policy development regarding university-business cooperation, leading to directions for future research.

The topic of university-industry collaboration has been of particular importance to the Bled Conference for the past 25 years. Our motivation to study this topic was inspired by recent discussions on engaged scholarship and successful publication strategies in which we observed a difference in attitudes towards collaboration projects in different regions of the world. We were particularly interested in exploring drivers and barriers for engagement with industry partners from the point of view of IS academics. As a result, we embarked on a long-term research programme on the investigation of successful modes of collaboration. In this paper, we present the findings of the first qualitative in-depth phase, in which we interviewed nine experienced researchers in order to understand the phenomenon of university-industry collaboration in the context of different research backgrounds. The findings from the preliminary interviews show that researchers have very differing individual preferences regarding the ideal setup of such collaborative research projects. They also show that design research and case study are the most common research methods in such projects. While peer-reviewed conference papers and journal articles are the most popular forms of academic output, reports and sessions with managers are the prevalent output for industry partners. This work is a precursor to a larger survey, which will allow us to study correlations between characteristics of researcher/project type and success factors for such projects in different regions of the world.

This paper aims at investigating influence of university types on both modes and size of collaborating firm. The remarkable findings could be concluded as follows: (1) University types relate to modes in a certain degree. National universities tend to have R&D collaboration with firms, while other types of university do not predominantly rely on any specific mode. Not only government policy, historical background does matter as well. (2) Instead of university type, types of modes are likely to relate to the size of collaborating firm. Large firms tend to be potential R&D partners, whereas small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are focused partners for consulation. (3) Socio-economic characteristics of the location where universities are located affect roles of universities in supporting industry. National universities in local area often work with both large firms and SMEs in order to respond to local demands. In addition, universities’ specialisations perhaps influence university and industry collaboration. Different types of universities having relatively high specialisation in engineering courses have similar roles in supporting industry and (4) country contexts influence roles of universities due to different policy focuses, and different levels of universities and firms’ technological capabilities. Japanese university– industry collaboration seem to focus more on R&D acitivities, comparing to Thai universities.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been placed at the core of regional innovation ecosystems and encouraged to contribute to the social and economic development of the communities where they operate. In response to this change in the environment, HEIs have faced the need to adapt their organisational culture, practices and structures. In spite of the acknowledged relevance of university-business cooperation (UBC) as a source of HEI competitive advantage, and the recognition that appropriate interventions or supporting mechanisms can effectively foster UBC, there is still little systematic understanding of organizational mechanisms in the HEI management of UBC. In order to fill this gap, this paper identifies and evaluates the mechanisms that European HEIs are using to nurture industry collaboration at strategic and operational level and assess their relationship with seven UBC activities. With a sample of 2.157 HEI managers in 33 countries, the main results highlight the importance of the combination of support at both strategic and operational levels and the core role of the management commitment for all UBC activities. The paper concludes with the contribution to theory and the relevant implications for UBC managers and policy makers.

Despite the importance of university-industry collaboration, issues pertaining to the characteristics of collaborating firms, their modes of interaction, and the relationship between these modes and outcomes are not well-researched. The impact of country's development on these issues is also unclear. This case study examines Japan and Thailand—respectively representing developed and developing countries—and features the following key findings: 1) the characteristics of firms affect modes, with large Japanese firms being more collaborative with universities, whereas Thai SMEs significantly collaborate more with universities; 2) the relationship between modes in Thai firms is stronger than those of Japanese firms because in Thailand, perhaps due to weak technological capacity, R&D collaboration is conducted alongside university consultancy services; and 3) in Japan, R&D and human resource development collaboration lead to product innovation, whereas different outcomes are expected from different modes in Thailand. Apparently, trivial informal collaborations do have significant impact on innovation.

—Social network sites (SNSs) have become strategic networking tools for employment-related activities. They shape professional identity and influence professional and career practices, providing new paths for career, employment and recruitment processes. Students' professional identity is influenced by their career management and work experience. There is a lack of research on the use of SNSs for students' on-line career management competenc-es. A survey was conducted to examine students' attitudes regarding the use of SNSs for career management competences and professional identity development. The student's attitudes revealed career control, networking for learning, career reflection, self-presentation and work exploration as predictors for stu-dents' actual use of SNSs for career management and professional identity development. For the career competences the main influencing predictors were found to be students' beliefs that SNSs support work exploration, processes of self-presentation and career control. For professional identity development, the main influencing predictors were students' beliefs that SNSs support career control and students' engagement in professional events through networking for learning. Findings could contribute to understanding and facilitation of the SNS-related career management competences.

The university-industry linkage is governed by public policies. These policies are contained in national government plans that seek for efficiency when taking decisions and transparency during the government's administration. This paper analyzes Bardach's eight-step model, university-industry linkage policies from 2007 to 2012. As a result we propose ten strategies that aim to strength university-industry linkage policies.

In Turkey, most university administrators and academic staff members are not yet fully aware of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Researchers often have difficulty in licensing opportunities that can provide additional revenue streams due to the lack of either strategic policies set by the administration or a dedicated technology transfer (or licensing) office (TTO). This paper attempts to shed some light
on the relationship between intellectual property rights and licensing awareness in Turkish universities as well as how this is affected by the lack of TTOs. Semi-structured exploratory interviews were conducted with 45 researchers in two different faculties (Medicine and Engineering). Results show that most of the participants, including a higher-than-expected percentage from the Faculty of Engineering,
were not aware of the importance of the technology that they had developed in terms of licensing and royalties that they could earn. In conclusion, it can be said that universities in Turkey have to undergo a policy change regarding managerial issues, especially with regards to Technology Transfer Offices. Increasing the visibility of technology transfer options and agreements, as well as further research on this topic, is recommended.

The issues of university to industry knowledge transfer contributions on organization and national economy competitiveness has attracted great interest amongst academic researchers and policy makers since many years. This paper aims to discuss the implementation of university to industry knowledge transfer activities within university and industry alliance and how the government policy established to support and to manage the synergy between the two parties. The organization of the paper as follow: Firstly, the paper discuss the importance of university to industry knowledge transfer on organization and national competitiveness. Secondly and thirdly, deals with how knowledge transfer activities implemented within university and industry alliance in Indonesia. Fourtly, the discussion continued government policies to manage the university to industry knowledge transfer activities within university and industry alliance. Lastly, the discussion will focused on how to manage conflict that might arise between university and industry as two different institution with different mission and culture

Using the university–industry co-publications (UICP) propensity indicators developed by Tijssen (CWTS Working Paper Series, CWTS-WP-2012-009, 2009), this paper examines the impact of university–industry R&D collaboration on university technology
commercialization output for leading US and Canadian universities. Our analysis suggests that UICPs do have a significant positive influence on universities’ technology
commercialization outputs, after controlling for the quantity and quality of their research and for their commercialization resources. The results are robust for all three common measures of university technology commercialization: patenting (both in terms of simple
patent counts and citation-weighted counts), spin-off formation, and technology licensing.  To supplement the aggregate regression findings, five case studies are provided that offer
further insights on the causal mechanisms involved. Implications of these findings and possible future research directions are discussed.

Avanti is an international and multidisciplinary project, were undergraduate students, from different backgrounds, have the challenge to design an intelligent vehicle for the Mexican elderly in 2020. This venture is motivated by the convergence of a set of different initiatives: the creation of a new Technology Park, the desire to create a new technology-based businesses and the to need to attract students, innovators and entrepreneurs to propose new solutions to global needs. In this work we are assisted by a group of experts from different geographical regions (Mexico, Spain, Italy and United Kingdom) who help teams of students address this challenge. This short paper presents our work-in-progress by introducing the concepts, people (some 23 teams of students) and challenges associated with this project.

Product innovation can be both an opportunity and a concern for IT companies. Those driving innovation can gain unprecedented market openings, while those trailing can risk disaster. Victor Callaghan, Professor of Computer Science at Essex University, explains.

The level of interaction between academics and firms seems to be higher than ever, and policymakers adopt a variety of policies to foster an effective integration between research establishments (REs) and regional industries. This article explores the role of researchers and the interaction between private companies and REs in small innovation projects funded under the Norwegian Programme for Regional R&D and Innovation(VRI). VRI aims to stimulate research-based innovation in regional firms by funding collaboration projects between firms and external researchers. A drawback of innovation policies attempting to stimulate RE–industry collaborations is that they often neglect firms’ perspectives and motivations. Some academic studies argue that systemic approaches focusing on regional development and new path development tend to overlook in-depth analyses at the firm level. This paper aims to combine both approaches by exploring how firms perceive the role of the researchers in the projects, the quality of interactions and, in the end, the outcome of collaborations. Our analysis reveals that the role and motivations of researchers influence the outcome of projects and, from a systemic perspective, that the characteristics of regional innovation systems in which firms operate may represent an advantage or a barrier for satisfactory collaborations.

Businesses are becoming increasingly involved in collaboration networks to access external knowledge and sustain innovation. In this context, knowledge and knowledge transfer are considered an important source of innovation and competitive advantage. Social capital theory offers a theoretical approach to explain how individuals, groups, and organizations manage relationships and access knowledge resources. The structural dimension of social capital has stimulated debate regarding optimal network configuration to achieve innovation. The extant literature suggests network structures evolve from a bridging configuration to a bonding configuration without examining the details of how the evolution occurs within the network and its stage-by-stage impact on knowledge transfer. This study explores this relationship by analyzing the evolution of a successful Irish pharmaceutical network involving organizations from industry and academia. This research setting encompasses a rare network configuration in an industry known for its lack of collaboration among competing firms. Findings show that structural holes provide access to a set of complementary and heterogeneous knowledge. However, for such knowledge to be exploited, the network configuration has to evolve from a sparse network (small in size and characterized by weak ties across multiple organizational networks), to a large and cohesive network configuration characterized by high levels of commitment, trust, fine-grained information exchange, and joint problem solving. Mechanisms crucial to this evolution include consistently-scheduled meetings, training to communicate tacit knowledge, wide diffusion of knowledge through an on online portal, and relationship specific investments designed to safeguard intellectual property. Surprisingly, industry members appear to transition to a cohesive network faster than do academic members.

The focus of this thesis is on the signal processing techniques used to increase the au-dio quality of the most common digital audio effects employed in electronic musical instruments also taking into account the feasibility of the proposed algorithms’ implementation in accordance with the design constraints and the available computational limits. More in detail four different issues have been analyzed throughout this dissertation: artificial reverberation, analysis and emu-lation of nonlinear devices, audio morphing, and room response equalization.
Among the audio effects, one of the most used is definitely artificial reverberation. A great deal of research has been devoted in the last decades to improve the performance of digital artificial reverberators. Thanks to the progress of technology the traditional techniques based on recursive structures (i.e., IIR filters) are accompanied by new approaches based on fast convolution tech-niques and hybrid reverberator structures. On this basis, an efficient real-time implementation of a fast convolution algorithm has been proposed taking into account an embedded system. More-over, a technique for reducing the computational load required by this operation using psycho-acoustic expedients has been presented considering a joint assessment of the energy decay relief and the absolute threshold of hearing. Finally, some techniques for the approximation of the convolution operation with recursive structures at low computational cost have been suggested.
Although the convolution operation allows the exact reproduction of a linear system, it is im-portant to consider that most of the audio effects are nonlinear systems (i.e., compressors, distor-tion, amplifiers). For this reason, the most commonly used techniques for the emulation of non-linear systems based on a black box approach have been studied and analyzed. In particular, a technique for the approximation of the dynamic convolution operation by exploiting the princi-pal component analysis has been proposed. Using this procedure it is possible to reduce the cost of dynamic convolution without lowering the perceived audio quality. An adaptive algorithm for the identification of nonlinear systems using orthogonal functions has also been presented.
In order to provide greater flexibility and major artistic expression to musicians, several audio morphing techniques have been analyzed. In particular, this procedure makes possible to com-bine two or more audio signals in order to create new sounds that are acoustically interesting. This study has led to the development of an audio morphing algorithm for percussive hybrid sound generation. The main features of the presented approach are preprocessing of the audio references performed in the frequency domain and time domain linear interpolation to execute the morphing.
Finally, equalization techniques for improving the quality of sound reproduction systems by compensating the room transfer function have been taken into account. In particular, two algo-rithms for adaptive minimum-phase equalization and a mixed-phase equalization technique have been proposed. In order to verify the suitability of the proposed systems, experiments on a realis-tic scenario have been carried out.

To remain competitive in a technology driven, fast changing, globalised business environment, and pursue sustainable development goals; Companies today are demanding a high degree of professionalism, intellectual common sense, emotional maturity, domain knowledge, competitive techno-functional competencies from the new breed of graduating students, engineers and value chain managers. Human Resource capacity enhancement and development of functional capabilities in new work related skills, per say employability skill improvement, has become a major challenge across organizations and institutions, especially from emerging and developing economies. In the context of higher education, to address these challenges, a structured, systematic and collaborative approach by strengthening Industry Academia Interface [I.A.I.] can inherently supplement professional skill development efforts of graduating students. University Industry Collaboration or I.A.I. is emerging as a key growth area in the context of academic value addition and value integration that would inadvertently supplement conventional classroom learning of traditional education formats. A mutually integrative engagement model for I.A.I. is illustrated as Collaborative Engagement for Organizational Development and Employability (CODE) in this paper. Thereupon to infuse a fresh perspective across various competitive skills desired by the employers, in the categories of hard and soft skills, with a blend of basic and advanced life skill traits; various subset elements of graduate employability are grouped to develop a graphical perspective of an Employability Skill Traits Management Quotient (ESMQ). This paper contains the concept proposal, structure, synthesis and theoretical analysis of the ESMQ model, from various organizational frames of references. It is believed that the proposed ESMQ Model would assist in designing varying levels of training interventions, through Accelerated Learning Programs (ALPs) that would distinctly enhance the overall employability of graduating students; consequently making them ready for speedy absorption in Businesses and Industry.

Abstract
One of the major problems facing Nigeria is graduate unemployment. Nigeria parades well over hundred universities owned by the Federal, State and private individuals, which have been churning out graduates every year without prospect for employment. One of the major factors contributing to this scenario is the mismatched between the school curricula and the needs of the industrial sector of the economy. With heavy reliance on empirical and secondary data, the study advocates for university-industry collaboration as one of the measures to mitigate graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The study finds that mismatched between university curricular and industrial needs renders most Nigerian graduates unemployable. The study therefore, suggests among others the need to bring in seasoned industrialists to participate in drawing curricula and also teach some practical courses on part time basis in Nigerian Universities. Efforts in this direction will equip Nigerian graduates with skills needed in the industrial sector of the economy with implications for their employability status.
Keywords: University, Industry, Collaboration, Graduate Unemployment, Nigeria

Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) have gained importance in Turkey since The Supreme Council for Science and Technology made a decision on supporting Technology Transfer Offices as an interface by public funding to contribute universityindustry relations, to support commercialization of technology, and to provide logistic reinforcement for academic researches on December 27, 2011.The definition of Technology Transfer Office in Turkey can be made as an organization performing the role of an interface between universities and industry to create knowledge based economy through this cooperation. Since 2013, 20 TTOs were established within the structure of universities with the funding support of Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). However, the concept of technology transfer was used in the U.S.A. in 1940’s and in Europe in 1980’s. Here in this study, the structure of Technology Transfer Offices in Turkey was analyzed in comparison with Europe and the U.S.A. by using descriptive screening model. As a result of this study the current position of TTOs in Turkey was defined, and the results indicated that TTOs in Turkey will reach the functionality level of their counterparts in the U.S.A and Europe with the existing environment, staff and public support.

Collaborative processes toward sustainability have been receiving increased interest among scholars, policy makers, business practitioners, and other environmental constituents (Hartman et al., 1999). Despite the emergence and acceptance of collaboration within and across a variety of sectors, including government, industry, and the environmental community, little critical research has contributed to our understanding of how effective and appropriate collaboration is as an alternative to traditional ‘command and control,’ protest, or confrontational approaches to environmental protection and sustainability (Harrison, 1999). In a review of collaborative partnerships amongst environmental non-government organisations (NGOs), businesses, and other entities, Murphy and Bendell (1997) claimed: “In most of the partnerships described … almost no attempt was made to develop systems to evaluate the partnership’s direct contributions to the achievement of environmental goals” (p. 229). In practice, some of the shortcomings resulting from collaboration to address environmental problems have generated harsh criticisms (Currah, 2000). The opportunities and challenges of collaboration warrant careful consideration because the dominant theoretical paradigms shaping the debate on the transformation of environmental practices, discourses, and institutions all pose ‘collaboration’ as a necessary process for a more sustainable world. Drawing from research examining collaboration in government, industry, and environmental NGO sectors, this chapter contributes to the discourse about collaboration’s potential for realising the kind of changes deemed necessary for sustainability by arguing that collaboration and conflict are ends of a continuum that need to be employed simultaneously. Because sustainability is not well defined, collaboration is needed to facilitate the constructive exploration of environmental stakeholder differences to establish collective understanding of the necessary path toward sustainability. The threat of conflict is needed frequently to encourage dialogue and participation.

Middle income trap is defined as countries that attains the middle income but could not reach higher income for many years. To overcome the trap necessitates qualified and steady economic growth. In this study, information on middle income trap will firstly be given, then experiences of countries, which overcome the middle income trap, will be investigated and suggestions for Turkey will be presented.

This article investigates the development path of university and industry collaboration (hereinafter UIC). The remarkable findings are as follows; Firstly, Japan and Thailand have different level of national innovation systems; nonetheless, common development patterns were found. In the cases of UIC evolving overtime, two development paths were found: step-by-step (from low-to medium and to high relational intensity) and leapfrog (from low to high or from medium to high). For those not evolving overtime, both UIC set fixed specific goals and collaborative patterns. University's expertise (supply-push) and firm's technological capability (demand-pull), trust (built by both intermediaries and the two partners) and mutual interest are drivers shaping development paths. Secondly, university-industry collaboration activities have not developed when researchers were not interested to continue working or firm lacked capabilities to carry on projects after government supports were terminated. Lastly, important activities in two national systems are different. Researcher mobility from companies to universities frequently happened in the Japanese cases, but in the Thai cases, mobility of students is much more prevalent.

The increasing reliance on knowledge in industry and services is generating strong incentives to develop
more efficient ways to transfer the discoveries made in academia to business. This paper mainly focuses
to identify the status and characteristics of university-industry (UI) collaborations at a research university.
Moreover a quantitative research method was adopted in this study. The sample was selected from
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). A total of 42 UTM centers participated in this survey. The findings demonstrate the type of existing UI collaborations and mobility at UTM. Furthermore, the result indicated the characteristics of university partners.

This paper investigates the university-industry interaction and its effect on the likelihood of product and process innovation, in a developing country. More specifically, we argue that firms differ in the type and determinants to interact with universities and these differences may result in different innovation outcomes. We collected and analyzed primary data from 325 that had any interaction with universities in previous years. Logistic regression results provide some support for our argument by demonstrating how different types of interaction result in different innovation outcomes.

Several countries have introduced programs intended to develop or increase their competitiveness. Entrepreneurial universities in particular are considered critical actors in order to reach this goal. While in advanced economies many of this type of universities have been established over the years, this is not the situation in emerging economies. These economies are only in the beginning of this development. Against this background and the activities found in Turkey, the aim of this chapter is to shed light on the current state of Turkish universities regarding their development into entrepreneurial universities. The findings reported may be useful for academics, policymakers, and other actors interested in the topic.

Business organisations as end users of innovation interact with universities for knowledge transfer for
significant improvement in business practices and competitive advantage. These include formal and
informal links through which innovative outcomes are achieved. This paper considers the influence of
formal links between industries and universities on innovation taking place in the industry from the
perspective of businesses in Ghana. Based on a survey of business organisations, the analysis and
results of a structural equation modeling of the data does not support a claim that organisations’ formal
links with universities in Ghana influence innovation, but with mediating effects of co-operate
collaborations and knowledge-based networking, there is sufficient evidence for innovative
performance eventually in organisations. It is concluded here that formal engagements of organisations
with universities can lead to innovation nonetheless, when collaborations and networking are both used
to strengthen innovative processes. The results are of significant value to the Ghana Government and
the private sector for the implementation of policies that will incentivise business executives in the
country to apparently interact more with knowledge actors for effective innovations performance.

Considering that companies, especially SMEs, have limited resources to support their product development processes, their
management has started to look for fresh ideas and competent individuals outside their borders. Co-creation is seen as a
powerful engine for innovation. This paper focuses on the establishment of university-industry cooperation, by engaging
Serbian students and researchers in product development processes of a company from Germany. This company has
introduced four problems, two of them solved by chosen expert teams and another two by interested students. The paper
shows potential and high level of performance identified in this case, by engaging a large number of students and experts
outside the company through an innovation contest in comparison with the internal product development.

This research aimed to discover more about circular design opportunities;; in particular, what products should be created to travel quickly through a cycle, and which ones should travel slowly. Whilst much has been written about design for product longevity most of it focuses on pioneering SME's rather than larger industry stakeholders. Current Industry tools provide quantitive information to evaluate a complex range impacts, but speed of the lifecycle is not considered. In order to address this lack, workshops were designed to use four typologies derived from previous LCA research – a polyester shirt, an outdoors jacket, a t-­shirt and some jeans. 24 redesigned concepts were created over a four-­month period with 56 industry stakeholders, explored through materials, business models and user mindsets lenses. The resulting concepts created speed-­based insights which extended beyond individual garment scenarios, to include systems and user perspectives towards a more progressive view of product cycles for fashion.

One of the major problems facing Nigeria is graduate unemployment. Nigeria parades well over hundred universities owned by the Federal, State and private individuals which have been churning out graduates every year without prospect for employment. One of the major factors contributing to this scenario is the mismatched between the school curricula and the needs of the industrial sector of the economy. With heavy reliance on empirical and secondary data, the study advocates for university-industry collaboration as one of the measures to mitigate graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The study finds that mismatched between university curricular and industrial needs renders most Nigerian graduates unemployable. The study therefore, suggests among others the need to bring in seasoned industrialists to participate in drawing curricula and also teach some practical courses on part time basis in Nigerian Universities. Efforts in this direction will equip Nigerian graduates with skills needed in the industrial sector of the economy with implications for their employability status.
Keywords: University, Industry, Collaboration, Graduate Unemployment, Nigeria

"R&D and innovation is one of the activities done by developed countries for a long time, allocated more funds and paid much attention nowadays by developing countries. The biggest proportion of the growing especially in developed countries leans on R&D and innovation. However, R&D and innovation activities
in our country are not sufficient yet.

In the research, it is aimed to determine firms’ strength and weaknesses in the R&D and innovation processes and the R&D and innovation potential of the Aegean Region. For this purpose, within the research, the largest companies in the Aegean region have been analyzed. The data needed for the analysis is gathered with 143 face to face meetings via two different surveys prepared during the research.

It has been displayed that the part allocated for R&D and innovation in the largest firms in the Aegean Region from their total income is very low, many firms do not have units which has the term of reference as R&D and innovation and they work with low amounts of R&D personnel. It is stated that firms execute
limited amounts of R&D and innovation projects and most of those projects are not designed for developing new products but for improving of the existing products. The firms located in the Izmir do not benefit efficiently from the R&D and innovation support programs, most of them execute their projects by their own resources. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that R&D studies resulted with patents are very few. It is identified that firms apply close-innovation model in their R&D and innovation processes, they do not cooperate with other institutions and bodies especially universities, and if they have cooperation it never goes further than only general information exchange. It has been detected that the cooperation with universities focuses more on test – analysis and laboratory work than the projects may conclude with new products or patents."

Universities are primary sources of new knowledge production and innovation in Serbia and crucial element for technological change in vital segments of economy. Therefore knowledge and technology transfer from universities is an extremely important factor. In this paper an introduction to the iDEA lab, student centred co-creative ecosystem is given, including its background, specific goals, and expected impact. iDEA lab represents and innovative way to link universities and industry as well as to include students in technology transfer.

Businesses are becoming increasingly involved in collaboration networks to access external knowledge and sustain innovation. In this context, knowledge and knowledge transfer are considered an important source of innovation and competitive advantage. Social capital theory offers a theoretical approach to explain how individuals, groups, and organizations manage relationships and access knowledge resources. The structural dimension of social capital has stimulated debate regarding optimal network configuration to achieve innovation. The extant literature suggests network structures evolve from a bridging configuration to a bonding configuration without examining the details of how the evolution occurs within the network and its stage-by-stage impact on knowledge transfer. This study explores this relationship by analyzing the evolution of a successful Irish pharmaceutical network involving organizations from industry and academia. This research setting encompasses a rare network configuration in an industry known for its lack of collaboration among competing firms. Findings show that structural holes provide access to a set of complementary and heterogeneous knowledge. However, for such knowledge to be exploited, the network configuration has to evolve from a sparse network (small in size and characterized by weak ties across multiple organizational networks), to a large and cohesive network configuration characterized by high levels of commitment, trust, fine-grained information exchange, and joint problem solving. Mechanisms crucial to this evolution include consistently-scheduled meetings, training to communicate tacit knowledge, wide diffusion of knowledge through an on online portal, and relationship specific investments designed to safeguard intellectual property. Surprisingly, industry members appear to transition to a cohesive network faster than do academic members.

In this report, we evaluate the overall technology management and transfer scenarios in Brazil. We present an overview of the national science, technology and innovation (STI) panorama, discuss the prevailing national STI policy framework including recent policy developments, and present the country’s federal innovation law and policies for promoting technology transfer from universities and research centres to industry, including recent initiatives taken at federal and state levels. We then analyse two of the country’s most important technology management offices from the two most important research universities in the country. The main findings of the report are: technology transfer is evolving in a positive manner; institutional and market obstacles hinder an acceleration of the process; TTOs need to become more professionalized and given greater autonomy; TTOs integrated with the university or research innovation framework perform better and in-depth hypothesis based studies are needed to advance future knowledge of technology transfer and commercialization in Brazil.

The intermediaries are important organisations in mitigating systemic failures. Few of such failures
are those of university–industry linkages (UILs). Although there are several previous studies, they did
not pay adequate attention on how these intermediaries accumulate their capabilities that are necessary
to perform their roles over time. This study will try to partially fill in such gap by investigating
capabilities-building processes of intermediaries. The intermediaries in Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
industry in Thailand was selected as a case study. Qualitative data was collected from 20 semi-structured
and in-depth interviews of intermediaries’ management, university researchers and industrial companies
in the intermediaries’ networks. The findings show that the intermediaries play consulting, brokering,
mediating and resources providing roles. They assist to increase levels of interactions between university
and industry, transform informal to formal relationships and nurture potential human resources
for the industry. However, performing such activities depends on the intermediaries’ capabilities.
Four key capabilities encompass network capabilities, coordination capabilities, knowledge-building
capabilities and management capabilities. Underneath them, strategic capabilities, depending on
leadership, engender the intermediaries’ visions and strategies. Human resources development is
stimulated through individual and collective learning. These four capabilities are embedded into the
existing organisational systems by using mentoring and on-the-job training for newcomers, building
up the database system and arranging meetings for knowledge sharing on a regular basis. However,
discontinuity of government supports leads to a decrease in network members, transformation of
formal relationships back to informal ones and the close down of intermediary.

This article extends previous empirical research on the benefits and barriers for researchers in the field of Information Systems (IS) to engage in University-Industry Collaboration (UIC), a term that is used to describe the active engagement of a company or government agency in a joint research project with academics. The objectives and motivations of UIC have been discussed widely and controversially in the literature. We were particularly interested in the perceived benefits and barriers that influence an individual researcher to engage (or not engage) in a joint research project. An in-depth literature analysis showed that a very small number of research articles contain empirical data and that there are serious methodological issues. In order to address these issues, we collected primary data from 328 IS researchers with experience in UIC and conducted an explorative study. We developed parsimonious formative measures for the benefits and barriers of UIC and we found that academic and economic benefits positively influence the intention to conduct UIC in the future, while economic barriers negatively influence the intention to engage in UIC. A cluster analysis found five clusters (groups of researchers) that differ in their perception of benefits and barriers and the future intention to conduct UIC. However, the majority of the researchers have a very high intention to conduct UIC in the future.

Next Stepconnections embarks on its online social communities’, interns’, universities’ and corporations’ membership platform as the network effects to create those incremental benefits gained through its clustered existing Learning and Education Community members groupings for its new interns, social communities, educationalists and business members that join this online Life-long Education Community network.  With its subsidiary arm of the NEXT STEP SYSTEMS and NX Institute, together develop as its customer (Learners/Corporations) segmentation strategy through the two-sided direct network effect, Next Stepconnections establishes this as its own education and digital transformation service provider of leading edge digital transformation development and programs and its main business objective (benefits gained – its data assets of the Life-long Education Community needs) is to function as the extended arm to businesses, individual professionals and small medium enterprises’ business transformation, internship projects and learning needs based on current industry and future workforce transformational needs.

Universities traverse epistemic, sectoral and geopolitical boundaries with increasing frequency, but along the way encounter challenges in mitigating unequal capacities, soaring costs and proprietary concerns. The bridging of disparate stakeholder interests requires an enormous effort, as research policies, institutional norms and organizational cultures in global science often remain irreconcilable. In seeking to identify strategic leverages for optimal balance in cross-border partnerships, this paper considers the case study of the Structural Genomics Consortium, which represents a synergy of resources, interests and commitments by research universities, governments and industries in Canada, Sweden and the UK. By triangulating data derived from content analysis of institutional materials, interviews and participant observations in Toronto, the study zeros in on the Canadian equilibration of symbolic, cultural and organizational forces aimed at securing long-term stakeholder support across institutional, sectoral and geopolitical domains.

L'Università come Istituzione è stata investita negli ultimi venti anni da una serie di crescenti aspettative, in relazione alla capacità di incidere sulle dinamiche di innovazione non solo a livello nazionale, ma anche regionale e locale. L'attuale fase del decentramento amministrativo in Italia, dopo la riforma del Titolo V della Costituzione, lascia alle amministrazioni regionali la possibilità di costruire meccanismi di valorizzazione della ricerca e di trasferimento delle conoscenze possedute dagli atenei verso il sistema economico, ma non tutte le Regioni possiedono identiche capacità di sviluppare politiche dell'innovazione. L'articolo analizza, attraverso dati raccolti per un recente progetto di ricerca relativo alla costituzione di un "polo dell'innovazione meccatronica" in Emilia-Romagna, le criticità e le opportunità collegate alla valorizzazione del collegamento tra ricerca e imprese. I risultati del caso di studio dimostrano che questo tipo di azioni, per essere effi caci ed effi cienti, oltre a coinvolgere l'Università, le istituzioni e le imprese in un disegno strategico complessivo, devono essere inserite in una logica di multi-level governance.

Taking researchers' motivations to cooperate with industry as the basis for exploring the characteristics and effects of their inducement, our analysis contributes to the debate on the factors interacting on university-industry engagement processes and thus helps to capture some intricate aspects of the nature of those cooperative exchanges. Our study includes a large variety of knowledge transfer channels, all scientific fields, and some relevant group (research teams) and individual (research teams' leaders) variables to make simultaneous observations. The specificities of the disparate reality observed regarding researchers' motivations and their involvement in cooperative mechanisms with industry demands a more focused and diversified course of action both in terms of further research and policy-making.

This paper examines the role of culture in university–industry R&D collaboration and knowledge interaction in the context of multinational corporations in China. Earlier university–industry studies focus primarily on one-way technology and knowledge transfer; however, the present study argues that in the studied context more interactive types of knowledge interaction like knowledge co-creation should be of key concern. The main challenge of the R&D collaboration lies in the understanding of culture in general and Chinese guanxi (interpersonal relationship) in particular in collaborative knowledge creation, in which the dominant type of knowledge involved is most often tacit, future oriented, complex and context-specific. This is particularly important when dealing simultaneously with multi-disciplinary applied research where cultural challenges appear prominent. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.