Issues in collaboration between Universities and Business

1. COLLABORATION,
CULTURE AND CONFLICT
Mike Allen
Councillor
and Development Specialist

2. Collaboration is a norm

3. But it can go wrong……
Professor Greenbaum and I
Cancer Cell antibodies

4. Quantum leap
 Since the Lambert Review of 2003
Collaboration with Business has increased and
changed dramatically
 Education is recognised as vital to economic
and social change
BUT
For effective long-term partnerships between organisations,
relationship building and trust among the members must exist.

5. Why collaborate with Business?
But across Europe, too many academics do not recognise the benefits of UBC
for themselves or their research and especially not in respect of their standing
within the HEI or their chances of promotion

6. Main Barriers
Culture
Systems
Working approach
Research approach
Commercial shares
Information, Intellectual Property
and publication
Main Solutions
Collaboration agreements
Joint systems
Secrecy boundaries
One clear leader responsible
Team-working and interpersonal
skills
Joint premises
Personnel exchange
Time to build Trust and mutual
experience

7. Conflict management

8. Coordination, Cooperation and
Collaboration
Collaboration as a process that “…occurs when a
group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem domain engage in an
interactive process, using shared rules, norms, and structures, to act or decide
on issues related to that domain”
Wood and Gray (1991)
Coordination involves a low level of joint planning, sharing of resources,
defining of compatible roles, and interdependent communication
channels each participant retains their own authority (Mattessich,
Murray-Close & Monsey, 2001)
Cooperation refers to a simple verbal agreement between
organizations to take some kind of unified action to make their
autonomous programs more successful (Hord, 1986). Each
cooperating organization remains totally independent, takes no risk,
and retains total authority (Mattessich, Murray-Close & Monsey,
2001). It is an informal interorganizational relationship lacking any
common mission, structure or joint planning

9. Collaboration Management skills

10. The mind of the entrepreneur
Different …..
•Pace
•Vision
•Culture
•Priorities
•Commitment
•Work/Security
•Risk

11. The mind of the academic

12. Ways that Universities cooperate with other institutions
National Centre for Universities and Business survey 2016 identifies 25 separate modes
of interaction with external organisations in 5 Groups:
• training relationships encompasses employee training, student placements, joint
curriculum development and enterprise education
• meetings, consulting and advice which do not require new original research. It
includes attending conferences, standard setting forums, network participation,
sitting on advisory boards, consultancy services, invited lectures and informal advice
• joint research includes joint research agreements, hosting of personnel, secondment
of personnel, contract research, research consortia and joint publications
• commercial activities and services includes licensing research outputs, patenting and
prototyping for external organisations, as well as the creation of new spin-out
companies and setting up new physical facilities.
• public engagement includes engagement through school projects, public lectures and
public exhibitions.

13. Examples
 applied research in advanced technologies
 in‐company skills development for
employees
 bespoke collaborative degree programmes
 science park developments
 enterprise education
 entrepreneurial support for staff and
students
 higher‐level apprenticeships
 skills development of post doctoral staff.
 Internships and work-based education

14. Cooperation with small
businesses
Businesses smaller than 250 employees spend around £200m working with HEIs
public sector, charities and social enterprises invested £1,288m to access the latest in
research, innovation and graduate talent.
Most are based around collaborative research projects, but in addition:
1. Share the best graduates
University placement schemes require reliable local business partners to offer internships
and projects for students to work on. E.g. Goldsmiths centre to shape computer games.
2. Universities lend you their equipment
Small businesses spent £49m in 2011 to access university equipment, but not everyone
knows what's out there
3. Academic and student staff
Knowledge Transfer Partnership. This government-funded scheme places a trained academic
inside your business to help you with a specific project lasting between six and 36 months
4. Access to cutting edge research
they'll work with you to turn an idea into a real business opportunity.
5. Universities and small business networks
Networking with other like-minded entrepreneurs, providing support and assistance and
Business incubators to help small organisations and start-ups get off the ground.

15. Cooperation with large
businesses
International culture vs Local culture
Hierarchical decisions vs networked
Power vs team culture
Growth vs shareholder vs consolidation

16. Sectors and jobs are changing
 Communications and networked supply chains
 Creative industries
 Materials technology, e.g “smart clothing”
 Advanced manufacturing and 3D
 Agricultural diversification
 Bio‐pharma and gene technology
 Nanotechnology
 Engineering and automation
 Power and instrumentation
 Business systems and AI

17. Tomorrow’s Technology
• High technology is Exciting,
creative inventive sexy
• It is essential we develop
efficient, reliable new
products and services
• Yesterday’s gimmick,
tomorrow’s necessity

18. New Technologies need imagination,
vision and technical expertise working
together
Nanotechnology and genetics
Sensors and automation
Knowledge Management
Cyber-Infrastructure
Sustainable Energy
Micro-electro-mechanics
Energy Storage
New Materials

19. Universities need:…
 faculty and administrative leaders need to
acquire a working knowledge of collaboration
theory and an understanding of the factors that
assist in the development of successful
interinstitutional collaborations
 Students who want to WORK in teams