Optimizing University Research Collaborations

OVERVIEW:Although the Industrial Research Institute's R&D Trends Forecast for 2000 predicted more external R&D collaborations, accompanied by increased grants to universities, most research partnerships remain underutilized. They neither target strategic technological challenges nor function effectively. Nor do companies harvest the results as efficiently as they might. To remedy this, companies must develop organizational practices for aligning strategically, managing collaboratively and evaluating consistently. They must learn when to work with a university, how to select the right partner, how best to initiate, implement and integrate projects, and how to evaluate and learn from the collaboration experience.