Abstract:

In the context of the economic transitions to a more sustainable future, academic research units and universities must collaborate with industry to develop research ideas and effectively apply research outcomes. The role of academic staff is crucial in the process by which academia and industry may come together, develop applied research, and turn it to successful new products and services. In the framework of social exchange theory, it is expected that a positive attitude to cooperation develops when an academic perceives that the benefits overcome the possible costs. In this line, the present paper aims to assess the relevant benefits and costs of university-industry collaboration, as perceived by a sample of 214 academics from three higher education institutions in Portugal, Poland and Turkey.

Results undoubtedly show that the perceived benefits are low. Overall, the respondents seem to have only marginally benefited from collaboration with industry, but there are some differences between areas of teaching and researching: staff from Natural Sciences and Math don’t see any benefits, while respondents from engineering and informatics, potentially more acquainted with industry, moderately perceive the benefits. The perceived costs of collaboration generally overcome the benefits. Of particular relevance is the perception of lack of time and support for engaging in those activities, meaning that staff feeling burdened by excess of activities would like to increase cooperation but find this expectation hard to achieve because of heavy workloads. However, the perceived cost is much smaller in one of the institutions, which is integrated in an industrial park, suggesting that ease of contact may drop significantly the collaboration costs.

From these results it may be suggested that universities should, on one hand, promote regular events involving the industry to increase networking, exchange ideas, and build opportunities to develop projects of applied research; and, on the other, alleviate workloads of teachers with valuable contributions to cooperation and value it in the assessment of job performance.

Acknowledgements:
Research funded by the EIT European Institute of Innovation & Technology HEI Initiative under the project "ETEIA - Energy Transition Entrepreneurs in Action". Grant agreement Nr. 10036.

Keywords:

University-industry collaboration, Social Exchange Theory, Higher education institutions.