Forms and varieties of research and industry collaboration across disciplines

Abstract

Academic scientists' engagement with industry is a central mechanism in university-industry knowledge transfer and the development of collaborative research. However, most empirical studies are limited to researchers in technical disciplines. We extend the analysis beyond engineers to include broader disciplinary fields, including humanists, economists, medicine, biosciences and cross-disciplinary scientists. Our findings suggest that crossdisciplinary researchers and researchers in technical sciences engage in more industry interaction than their peers. The motivations for the choice of research area play an important role in industry collaboration. Furthermore, we identify three types of industry interaction (interaction modes) among researchers: 1. educational interaction, consisting of conferences or seminars, corporate training programs, or supervising thesis work; 2. research interaction, consisting of shared publications, research-related consulting, public research programs and contract research; 3. integrated interaction, consisting of joint research in shared premisesand employment contracts with companies.Of these, the educational and research interaction modes (1 and 2) are motivated by the possibility of individual academic advancement. Integrated interaction (3) is rare and significantly correlates with only one of the three types of industry cooperation motivations: commercialization of research findings. We conclude by identifying future research needs, opportunities for methodological improvement and policy interventions.

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