The Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSTI) has released a summary of the key findings from a recent workshop on building strategic university-industry partnerships.

As strategic partnerships become an increasingly important and prevalent part of the university-industry landscape, and as opportunities for larger, higher value partnerships emerge in key economies such as China, India and Brazil, it is critical that we ensure that the necessary capabilities, processes and resources are in place within our university sector to remain competitive for these types of investments in the future.

The workshop brought together senior leaders and practitioners from universities, industry and government in the UK and US to learn from their collective and comparative experiences to address these issues.

The summary report outlines the key insights, lessons and effective practices identified through expert panel discussions and smaller facilitated breakout groups on the following key issues at different stages of the strategic partnership journey: 

• Exploring the value proposition and potential downsides;
• Initiating strategic partnerships;
• Nurturing and managing strategic partnerships;
• Building resilience to deal with disruption and change;
• Roles for government R&D funding agencies;
• Key challenges and opportunities moving forward

To download the summary report, please visit here.

A detailed workshop report will be released towards the end of summer 2014.

For further information about the report, or to engage with the research, please contact the lead investigator for the public research base and innovation research strand at CSTI, Tomas Coates Ulrichsen, or visit our website.

The workshop was organised by Tomas Coates Ulrichsen and Eoin O’Sullivan at CSTI in partnership with the UK-based PraxisUnico, the US-based University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, and the UK government’s Science and Innovation Network.