Abstract:

Collaboration between universities and industries in research and innovation projects play an important role in driving the economic development of a region. In fact, University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) continue to attract new players and additional new ways of developing work together. Both parts benefit from this type of collaboration, industry benefits from state-of-the-art academia research, and universities learn about market needs. The performance of an industry depends on how well its network of collaborators is run, since networks are a mechanism through which organisations share not only knowledge but also technologies. This should be no different in the tourism industry, a highly competitive sector demanding constantly for new and innovative products to meet the increasingly demanding needs of tourists, and always pursuing new market segments. However, despite all the benefits of these partnerships, success is not guaranteed. Many UIC face problems, particularly due to differences in motives and organizational cultural between universities and industries, which make collaboration difficult and the dissemination of knowledge ineffective.

Successful UIC are the ones in which companies have learnt to work outside their organization boundaries’ and have developed capabilities to interact and cooperate with partners with different characteristics, which is to say that they have learnt how to manage their relationships. Successful UIC have already delivered numerous innovations to the market, being the academia a source of creativity and talent while industry focused on the development of new products, processes and services, not only to meet the needs of customers, but also to generate income.

The aim of this research is to enhance the existing knowledge on UIC in tourism, by presenting the industry perceptions on how the collaboration impacted their activities, strategy and if their expectations were met. This research followed a qualitative research approach using two case studies, focused in the tourism sector, involving students from the last year of the Tourism Activities Management course, from the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (P.PORTO). The first case of UIC presented was a collaboration of P.PORTO with the organization responsible for the management and promotion of a Portuguese Villages Network (ATA – Village Tourism Association). The second partnership was a collaboration with a tourist company – WOW, which offers the possibility of experiencing six different museums: The Chocolate Story, Planet Cork, Pink Palace, The Wine Experience, The Bridge Collection and Porto Region Across the Ages, each one offering different activities, therefore distinct experiences. In both cases, the UIC main objective was to develop new tourist products to be launched by the industry into the market. Being exploratory in nature, the approach is supported by the data collected through interviews conducted to the entities’ interlocutors involved, with content analysis in order to provide a structured and comprehensive understanding of the barriers and facilitators of these UICs. Their overall perspective and general expectations, as well as the value added to their strategy, activities and organization, were some of the topics addressed.

Keywords:

University-Industry Collaboration, Partnerships, Co-creation, Tourism Higher Education, Portugal.