The Amazing Value of Academia-Industry Collaboration
One of the biggest concerns I hear from early-career academic researchers:
“I’m worried about getting enough funding to build my research program.”
This concern is easy to understand, as government funding is increasingly hard to secure in many countries.
Academic scientists are left to cut back on the scope of their research programs or find creative new sources of funding.
Collaboration with industry is one such novel funding source that more and more researchers are utilizing.
And they are finding benefits that go far beyond just extra funding.
An opportunity for academic researchers
The private sector has dramatically reduced its internal research activity in the last few decades, most clearly recognized by the decline of well-known research centers such as AT&T Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory, and Philips NatLabs.
This shift has created an opportunity for academic researchers to fill the gap. The private sector remains willing to pay for academic expertise, but engaging an academic research lab as a part-time resource available through a partner academic lab is often seen as a better investment than a full-time in-house research group.
A model for Innovation
Cooperation between academia and industry is not new and is reflected what is known as the ‘triple-helix innovation model,’ which suggests that innovation relies on the interplay between academia, government, and industry.
The ‘Triple-Helix’ model of innovation
The key elements of this model are as follows:
Academia provides fundamental research that is commercialized in industry and creates the trained workers that are employed by government and industry. Academia also sets and monitors the standards for producing new science.
Government provides funding for academic research, regulation of research and industry activities, and incentives to help drive important developments from industry.
Industry turns the science delivered by academia into solutions, generally in the form of products and services, and many of these products in turn help to advance science in academia. Industry also provides research funding to academia, which is the topic of this article.
Despite general agreement about the validity of this model, the interplay between academia and industry doesn’t work as well as it should.
Better collaboration is needed
Differences in culture and objectives tend to keep the two separated. Unfortunately, this gap exists in the minds of many scientists and engineers as much as anywhere.
But the ‘Us vs Them’ mentality that is far too common is also counterproductive.
I’ve spoken with many academic researchers who have built successful industry collaborations, and they describe very productive partnerships that provide significant value to their research. Their successes show that the culture differences are not the barrier they are often perceived to be, and that there is real opportunity for academic researchers who are willing to cross that cultural barrier.
Why don’t more researchers work with industry?
So, if academia-industry collaboration is critical to innovation, why does it work so poorly?
We’ve identified three primary barriers that tend to prevent academia and industry from working together:
Barrier 1: Culture differences
Academia and industry are very different cultures, driven largely by their unique objectives. The most fundamental of these differences, as I outline in my book It’s a Game, Not a Formula is that academic research exists to create new knowledge, but industry exists to create a profit.
What is created in academia: Knowledge
What is created in industry: Profit
This core distinction drives other divergences such as the pace of progress and willingness to invest in projects without a clear goal or benefit.
But successful industry collaborators I’ve interviewed demonstrate that academic researchers can be very effective on projects that deliver fast practical results. And while it is true that a PhD candidate is likely not as fast and focused as a seasoned company employee, successful industry collaborators have been able to identify industry projects that can be completed at the somewhat slower pace of a motivated grad student.
Barrier 2: Combining basic research and industry projects
Many academic researchers worry that it is either not practical or perhaps not even possible to pursue fundamental and applied research at the same time.
But researchers like Joe Shaw, professor of Optics and Photonics and Electrical Engineering and the director of the Optical Technology Center at Montana State University, find a career that blends basic research with fast-paced practical projects for companies both enjoyable and rewarding:
“It's been a lot of fun, because we get to do the basic science when we want to, and we also get to solve practical problems and do something useful to help the world.”
- Dr. Joseph Shaw, professor of Optics and Photonics and director of the Optical Technology Center at Montana State University
Barrier 3: Making industry connections
The third reason most researchers don’t partner with industry is that they don’t know how to make the personal connections that result in lucrative collaborations. The kind of networking that happens in industry, where people actively look for others who they can help or who can help them, is not so common in academia.
As Cather Simpson puts it, ‘I’ve learned that networking in industry is very different than networking in academia. Networking in academia is very focused, and you know very quickly whether you're aligned or not and whether there's anything worth pursuing. In industry, it's completely different.’ But her success shows that it can indeed be done. The key is to figure out where the companies you help can be found and go to meet them.
Meeting people in industry can be a challenge, so we teach a number of methods in our 2-day workshop titled How to Get Research Funding from Industry. For more on this, see the ‘5-Step Collaboration Plan’ section later in this article.
Benefits for Academia
At this point you may be thinking, ‘I see how academia-industry collaboration may be important for innovation, but why would I want to pursue it?’
We’ve identified three primary benefits for an academic researcher who collaborates with industry:
Benefit 1: More research funding
The primary motive for industry collaboration is additional sources of research finding. Many researchers find applying for federal research grants to be a frustrating game where they feel they have little control. By contrast, building collaborations with industry allows researchers to take control of their future, pursue companies they can help, and negotiate arrangements that benefit both the company and the researcher.
Benefit 2: More research commercialized
University technology transfer programs typically try to identify research from their staff that can be patented and then licensed to the private sector in some fashion.
But this standard tech transfer approach amounts to a solution in search of a problem. As such, the success rate is typically very low.
“The most frustrating part of considering how one might work with industry is that so many university tech transfer offices ask you, ‘What can you commercialize from your research?’ But that's completely the wrong way to think about how to use academic research to support industry.”
– Dr. Cather Simpson, professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Auckland, as quoted in Shaping the World
Companies need solutions, not science. They are busy trying to get the technology they already have out the door to their customers, so they don’t need more great ideas. What they do need is help with the problems that stand in the way of profiting from the technology they’ve already invested in.
“Every now and then someone who is looking for work will come to me and say, “I have this really great idea,” and I say, “Get outta here! I don’t need any more great ideas. What I need are people who can execute.”
– Tom Baur, founder of Meadowlark Optics, as quoted in Shaping the World: The Vital Role of Scientists in Industry
An approach that works much better, as described to me by Hugo Thienpont in my recent interview with him, is what is known as ‘flipped tech transfer.’ The idea is to connect with companies to help them solve the problems they currently have, not by trying to push your research ideas on them.
“If you want to work with industry, the focus needs to be on industry. Every day they are working on problems that range from very small to some that may take a year or two to solve, and your research group just might be able to help.”
- Dr. Hugo Thienpont, professor of engineering and director of Brussels Photonics (B-PHOT) at Vrije University Brussels
If a researcher builds trusting partnerships with companies in this manner, they will gain insight into the product roadmaps of their industry partners. And this allows them to pursue research that might be just what their partner companies are looking for in a few years. It also results in research that is more likely to produce a spinout startup. This is when the real value is realized, and it is a much more reliable approach to producing commercially viable research.
When academic research is guided by industry partnerships, the result is more commercialized research
Tech transfer funnel diagram courtesy of Venture Partners at CU Boulder
Benefit 3: Industry career preparation for students
Academic institutions around the world are slowly recognizing that most of their graduating PhDs will not follow the career paths of their advisors and become professors.
Most graduate programs still train their PhD candidates to become academic researchers, however. As a result, they enter industry with the thinking and working habits of research professors, rather than the habits that bring success in the fast-paced profit-driven world of industry. This makes their transitions into the private sector far more challenging and less productive than they need to be.
Exposing students to industry during the critical formative years in grad school makes a big difference in helping them transition more easily and be productive members of an industry team much faster.
Unfortunately, most faculty have no industry experience, so they are of little help in training industry thinking and working habits. I still remember the conversation I had with my PhD advisor when I told her I was planning to build my career in industry. She replied, “I’d love to help you, but I don’t know anything about industry. I’m afraid you are on your own.”
A great way for an advisor with no industry experience to expose students to industry is to build partnerships with companies.
“I realized most of my students who leave with a master’s or PhD are not going to be academics. And yet, we are training them to be academics, as we have been for generations.
“I started thinking about what it takes to succeed in industry and how I might be able to build industrial connections that would help my students.”
- Dr. John P. Davis, professor of physics at the University of Alberta
When an academic research group collaborates with a company to help them solve their problems, students get to see first-hand how industry teams function and how they are different than their academic research lab. Some of the most valuable lessons include seeing how companies engage in continuous prioritization, how decisions are made quickly, often with limited data, and why knowing all the answers is no longer the best approach.
This is a valuable introduction that will pay off big when students graduate and begin looking for their first job. Students who have been exposed to industry working habits will graduate with the following advantages:
1. They will interview better and secure a job more easily
2. They will perform better in that job, because they will understand what their manager needs from them, and
3. They will contribute more to humanity through the greater impact of their work
Benefits for industry
Academia-industry partnerships only work if there are significant benefits for industry as well. Companies in the private sector typically only invest in efforts that promise a good return on investment (ROI), so they will not support working with academic researchers for long unless they realize a clear benefit.
But academia-industry partnerships do indeed bring significant benefits to the private sector. Here are the primary benefits we’ve identified:
Benefit 1: More economical research
Most companies have decided that supporting a full-time in-house research group is not a good investment. But when a company partners with an academic research group, that group functions as a part-time research department that is there when they need it but does not require full-time support from the company. This is proving to be a much more attractive arrangement for many companies.
Benefit 2: More technology transfer
More commercially viable research coming out of academia means more new solutions for the problems industry is facing, and less of the ineffective ‘solution looking for a problem.’ This results in a clear financial benefit for a company, particularly when the research group directs its future research according to input from their partner company.
Benefit 3: More ‘industry ready’ workforce
The industry career preparation for students described in the Benefits for Academia section above benefits industry as well. When a PhD scientist starts their first job with a clear understanding of the industry environment and what is needed to deliver value, the ROI of hiring that employee goes up. And that initial benefit compounds over the subsequent years that they employee remains on the team.
Many companies who collaborate with academic research labs enjoy the ability to select graduates directly from the partner lab. Since they have already seen these candidates in action, this results in a higher confidence hire.
Providing value to companies:
When I speak with an academic researcher who is open to working with industry, they often imagine finding a company that is interested in their research. But this is rarely the case in a successful initial collaboration.
Most companies already have a technology they are working to commercialize and are not interested in the distraction of pursuing another new technology, no matter how promising it might be. They are focused on the problems that are preventing them from getting their current technology productized and out the door to paying customers. Companies need solutions, not science.
Companies need solutions, not science!
And therein lies the opportunity for the academic researcher. If you and your team can help them solve those problems, you are in business. Literally.
As Dr Hugo Thienpont, a professor at Vrije University Brussels said to me during our interview in early 2023, ‘If you want to work with industry, the focus needs to be on industry.’ Hugo has found that helping them solve their problems is the key to building deeper relationships that have long-term benefits.
“I discovered that if you solve their problems and help them to reach their goals, they may become more interested in the other work that you are doing. After a while they come and visit your labs and you get to show them what you're working on.
So, you start with small real-world problems that need to be solved immediately, and little by little, you can establish a longer-term collaboration.”
- Dr. Hugo Thienpont, professor of engineering and director of Brussels Photonics (B-PHOT) at Vrije University Brussels
Many researchers find that partnering with companies involves them in projects that bring more immediate and tangible value to the world.
Dr. Cather Simpson, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Auckland, describes in this excerpt from my conversation with her how her first collaboration with industry completely changed the perspective she had on providing value from her work.
“I realized that impact isn’t just about papers or talks that underpin tomorrow’s innovations. Impact can be practical directed research and development to solve a “today” problem.”
- Dr. Cather Simpson, Professor of Physics & Chemical Sciences and founder of The Photon Factory at The University of Auckland
A 5-step Collaboration Plan
If by this point I’ve convinced you that industry collaboration is a great idea, you may be wondering, ‘How do I actually make this happen?’ We teach a five-step approach to building your own industry collaborations.
Here is an overview of those steps:
Step 1: Determine your strengths – What are you and your lab great at? Think about it in terms of tools you own, unique or detailed knowledge you possess, and capabilities that you have. In this step you are collecting answers to the question, ‘What can your lab do to help us?’
Step 2: Define your target – Once you’ve assessed your group’s strengths, select a few industry sectors where you believe you can provide value. Which companies have problems that you can solve? What industries make their money by optimizing things that you and your team understand and measure?
Step 3: Build your network – Once you’ve identified companies in the industries you plan to target, go find them. Don’t just build a website describing your strengths and hope that companies find you. Find creative ways to meet them and initiate conversations about how you can help.
Step 4: Tell Great Stories – Simply listing the tools and capabilities you have usually isn’t enough to help industry decision makers see how you can help them. Tell great stories about what you can do and who it would help. Stories are very powerful tools for heling your audience connect the dots to see a picture of you and your group as the problem solvers they need.
Step 5: Think big – Our research shows that industry collaboration can lead to so much more than some extra research funding. Many of the researchers we’ve spoken with have grown their groups into large organizations with their own dedicated facilities and/or created multiple spin-off companies. (Check out the upcoming book Shaping the World to read their stories)
Like them, you can use industry collaboration to grow your research program into something beyond anything you ever imagined.
Get help building your plan
If you are excited to get started on your own industry collaboration plan, but you are wondering things like:
How do I find and connect with people in industry?
How do I describe our value in a way that grabs an industry decision maker’s attention?
How do I build a research group that functions well as an industry collaboration team?
Consider bringing TurningScience to your university to teach you how. We offer a 2-day workshop titled How to Get Research Funding from Industry where we teach all of this and more. You will leave the workshop with a completed plan that covers all 5 steps.
Your Industry Collaboration Plan
What’s more, you will have the opportunity to share your collaboration plan with your fellow workshop participants and get their feedback. This is an awesome way to get a reality check on your plan and generate new ideas from the examples of others.
In the How to Get Research Funding from Industry workshop, participants craft their collaboration plans and have the opportunity to share with others in the workshop.
The workshop is taught by me, a scientist with more than 25 years’ experience in industry leadership roles. I know what the companies you pursue will be looking for, and I know how you can help them.
