Abstract:

This paper focuses on university-industry collaborations and the role of intermediary institutions as a driver for innovation in Arab countries by targeting local needs and developments. It is the continuing paper to an already published article at INTED 2009 “University Chair on Innovation to promote a closer cooperation between academia and industry and support local development in the MEDA region” which introduced the general concept of the project. This paper presents a general framework encompassing the factors that can make university-industry collaborations more successful. The framework is built on experiences within a project called UNCHAIN: University Chairs on Innovation at five MENA (Mediterranean and North African) universities. The project aims to build innovation capacity at Arab universities and industries while supporting university-industry collaborations, and further fosters knowledge and technology transfer between European and Arabian universities. It reports first success stories and conclusions of the UNCHAIN project and success factors derived through literature analyses in a global context, which are included in a “Strategy for boosting the cooperation of business with MENA universities”. The strategy is meant to function as a guideline for future set-ups of Chairs on Innovation at universities with similar settings and conditions to the Arab ones. The major findings are that the present university-industry collaborations at MENA universities are mainly based on informal contacts between professors and industries and it is argued that the main challenge for institutionalising university-industry collaborations is the lack of trust between universities and industries. Appropriate mechanisms for tackling these challenges as well as an example procedure for establishing a Chair on Innovation is provided. The adopted research methodology is based on a combination of document analysis, expert interviews within the UNCHAIN project and quantitative data collection, aiming at displaying complex university-industry interactions from a university perspective.

Keywords:

Strategy, mena, technology transfer, university, industry.