Abstract:

University-industry collaboration (UIC) has been a popular research area for a number of years. This is evidenced by a significant increase in the number of studies that explored this topic from different perspectives. Prevailing research subjects included: organizational forms of UIC, motivations for UIC, factors that facilitate or inhibit implementation of UIC, activities of UIC, and outcomes of UIC. The number of published research papers is impressive. Each topic was covered by numerous authors from around the world.

However, despite the obvious continuous expansion of collaboration between universities and industry, as well as the strategic significance of such collaboration for both sides, it is often not adequately executed. Dissatisfaction often occurs on one side, and sometimes even on both sides. Problems in the development of collaboration and main reasons for its failure most commonly arise from its poor or inadequate organization. That is the reason why the research goal of this paper is to uncover possible forms of organizational support to university-industry collaboration within universities.

This article presents a systematic literature review, with the aim to identify and analyze organizational aspects of university-industry collaboration. Special attention was devoted to analysis of existing experiences of different universities regarding organizational support to university-industry collaboration and organizational forms of such collaboration. The most frequent organizational form of support among universities is the Center for university-industry collaboration. In addition to the detailed description of generic functions and activities of such a center, this paper also presents potential benefits its establishment provides for each of the associated parties, as well as the most common problems associated with its operation. The paper also proposes a possible scenario for establishing of a Center for university-industry collaboration, with guidelines on how to overcome potential problems throughout its development.

Keywords:

University-industry, collaboration, organization, center.