The changing nature of barriers to university-industry collaboration in the UK. Why university-industry collaboration doesn't have to be awkward. The bringing together of industry and academia has always been a tricky process.
The issue came under scrutiny in last month's Wilson Review, which looked at how collaboration in the UK between universities and industry can be improved. Typical university-industry events, can be a bit like – and I speak from my own personal experience in the late 1970s – a high school dance at a boys public school where the girls are bussed in at night from the local girls public school; both schools' "fittest" groups are interested in each other, realising each has a lot to offer but no one knows where to start. At the end of the evening everyone exchanges phone numbers and promises to ring, the girls get back on the bus, everyone blows kisses and waves goodbye and the boys wander back to their dormitories to imagine what could have been. Overcoming the business "dating" dilemma Our immediate Game5hack collaboration with advertising agency M&C Saatchi continues this theme of mixing academia and business.
It's about more than sandwich degrees: reacting to the Wilson Review. Sir Tim Wilson's review of business-university collaboration is out and most of the Twitter chatter (including mine) has been around employability, sandwich courses (we need a new name), internships and business-funded students.
But the report is wide-ranging and focuses on some difficult issues concerning innovation and economic growth that matter just as much as the student agenda. Wilson points to the galvanising role of universities in knowledge-based economies and makes some important recommendations. He wants to encourage the Technology Strategy Board to scope and support future Catapults (still can't get used to that particular bit of branding flummery), the potential of local enterprise partnerships in supporting regional innovation, simplifying planning and tax around science parks to encourage indigenous and foreign investment, and the reintroduction of innovation vouchers as entry level tickets to university collaboration.
Enhancing the Creative, Digital and IT Cluster in Brighton. The Evolving Structure of University-Industry Collaboration in the United States: Three Cases - Research Teams and Partnerships - NCBI Bookshelf.