Abstract:

The paper describes the areas of cooperation between universities and industry in the area of civil engineering. Presented examples are related to didactics, research grants and commissioned works. On the basis of the authors own experiences the mutual benefits of cooperation in different areas are described. As well as the assessment criteria of the areas of cooperation by the scientific community.

The first area of cooperation is didactics during studies. It is the place where beyond the obvious learning process students know the specialization of individual teachers. This knowledge allows current students to acquire help to solve engineering problems in the future by research projects and commissioned works. It is well known that it is possible to obtain funding of research project from the government or other institutions. All that is needed is a good idea and relatively small own contribution. On the other hand research projects usually require years of research and totally significant funds. In contrast, in the case of commissioned works the entrepreneur usually has limited time and financial resources and needs help to solve often very complex engineering problems. But in both cases the end of cooperation is the same. Everyone gains some profit. The difference is in evaluation by the scientific community. While areas of cooperation on the basis of didactics and research projects allow the development of all entities involved in the task by publishing the results the engineering activity of most scientist is not appreciated. That is why this article describes the examples of the experience gained from different areas of civil engineering resulting from the implementation of commissioned works, ie. the construction of the gas terminal, a large shopping mall loaded dynamically, the construction of suspension bridge and geotechnical monitoring.

Each of the highlighted areas of cooperation has a significant impact on the development of both the scientists and practicing engineers. However, according to the Polish assessment parameter system the research and didactics areas are rated much higher than solving engineering problems in cooperation with industry. This can be considered as a certain inconsistency since cooperation between science and industry gives the possibility of development.

Keywords:

Cooperation, evaluation, development.