ABOUT THE
RESEARCH
This article reports the
results of a three-year
study aimed at determining best practices for
industry-university collaboration. Data were
collected at 25 research-intensive multinational
companies from the
aerospace, information
technology, materials,
consumer electronics,
automotive, biomedical,
mining, paper and petrochemical industries.
Interviews of the responsible project managers
plus senior technology
personnel associated with
industry-university collaboration were conducted
for more than 100 university projects sponsored by
the companies.
We asked the companies to provide examples
both of successful projects and those that failed
to meet expectations. We
determined the amount of
success through a survey
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 enabled evaluation of the
project’s subsequent impact on the company.
Quantitative and qualitative information regarding
the levels of success of
the collaborations were
obtained, leading to our
identification of seven
best practices for managing collaborations.
in place. In particular, we sought to determine, in a
measurable way, “best practices” for the selection
process — the management and the development of
relationships that enable a company to capitalize on
a research partnership with a university.
To identify these best practices, we surveyed more
than 100 projects at 25 multinational companies that
engage in research collaborations with a broad base
of universities; a dozen of those projects involved
collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. (See “About the Research.”) We targeted
companies with substantial experience that allowed
us to tap the accumulated knowledge of experienced
managers in companies with successful track records
in utilizing university research.
Drawing on the quantitative and qualitative information provided by the industry project managers
and senior technologists, we have identified seven
practices consistently found in industry-university
research collaborations that had a substantive impact
for the company. (See “The Seven Keys to Collaboration Success.”) The first four practices pertain to
criteria for selecting the collaboration in the first
place. These provide the foundation for management
and for connection of the university research to the
company. The last three build on this foundation and
address issues of project management and of fostering maximally productive relationships between the
company and the university researchers.
Taken singly, the seven best practices are neither
new nor surprising. What is new is that the seven have
been extracted from a quantitative study that included
a large number of other practices as statistically important predictors of better university project
outcomes and company impact. (See “Five Things
That Don’t Affect a Collaboration’s Impact,” p. 86.)
Further, the practices also were identified as important in qualitative interviews with the company project
managers and senior technical personnel. These provide actionable items for project managers that can
benefit their interactions with academia.
Although the specific focus was on 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 findings may thus also be pertinent to
collaborations with nonuniversity research organi-
zations, such as government labs and nonprofit
organizations, as well as to industry consortia.
The Outcome-Impact Gap
The main observation that drives this discussion is
that industry-university collaborations often produce interesting outcomes — for example, an
insightful technical paper, a proposed process or a
new computer code — but those outcomes have
minor or no impact on company productivity or
competitiveness. (See “The Outcome-Impact Gap
for Industry-University Collaborations,” p, 87.)
Roughly 50% of the examined projects resulted in
what were seen as major outcomes (i.e., produced
new ideas or solutions to problems, developed new
methods of analysis or generated new intellectual
property of potential benefit for the company).
Given the risks in research funding, that is an impressive batting average. The fact that almost half
the projects had successful and consequential outcomes suggests that these companies are effective
in their selection of university research projects.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that only
40% of the projects with major research outcomes
were exploited in ways that led to major impact, defined as an observable and generally agreed-upon
positive effect on the company’s competitiveness or
productivity. The other 60% of the projects underachieved, at least from a business standpoint: The
outcomes did not make their way into products or
processes or influence company decisions.
This study aims to determine and address the
conditions that lead to such reflections. The “
outcome-impact gap” is not unique to industry-university
collaboration. A similar effect has been noted, for example, in government-sponsored Engineering
Research Centers. 1 The present work, however,
focuses on university research that is directly selected
by, and funded by, industry.
As in other models of cross-boundary knowledge
flows, it is important to have two-way knowledge
transfer between the university research team and the
company personnel managing the project, as well as
between the company project manager and others in
the company. (See “Knowledge Exchange Paths in Industry-University Collaboration,” p. 89.) In addition,
the project manager should represent the project’s
progress to groups inside the company and capture
