What are the 10 strongest barriers to developing university-industry linkages?

10 STRONGEST BARRIERS TO DEVELOPING LINKAGES BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES AND INDUSTRIES?

By: Dr Syed Hafeez Ahmad October 30, 2019

University-industry collaboration is one of the widely used interactive best practices, a powerful tool to create an enabling environment for technological innovation and enhance global competitiveness, ultimately promoting the interests of industry as well as universities globally. However, academia and industry have failed miserably to realize the potential of this collaboration.

The blog post “Developing Strong University-Industry Linkages: The Real Need of the Hour” revealed why strong university-industry collaborations have yet to be established, while the article 10 Reasons Why Universities Need Industry and Vice Versa? identified the fundamental reasons for strong collaborations between universities and industries.

What makes successful university-industry collaboration?

In fact, universities and industry thrive in volatile and competitive market conditions and their survival depends on their ability and willingness to adapt to the unprecedented pace of change. Universities interact with industry largely to gain basic research funding, industrial expertise, exposure to practical work experience and employment opportunities for students. The motivation for universities to collaborate with industry is that industry provides a streamlined source of financial support for universities that is less bureaucratic than government financial support.

Under this partnership mechanism, industries contribute to universities in the form of money, access to work sites and equipment. Such contributions are extremely valuable to academia, as universities have more leverage in using these funds to upgrade laboratories and provide scholarships to students, or provide seed money to start new research projects.

Bottlenecks in developing effective university-industry collaboration

In fact, there are many factors that have hindered effective collaboration between academia and industry. To begin with, universities around the world have been clearly defined as closed autonomous setups, characterized by freedom of teaching and research. On the other hand, industries have formal hierarchical structures with limited space for such enterprises.

The top ten most widely cited barriers to developing strong links between universities and key industries include:

1. Contradictions in function, structure, purpose and goals
2. Intrinsic differences in philosophy, culture, vision, mission and policy
3. Different value systems, governance structures and leadership styles
4. Unfriendly attitude of faculty and reluctance of management to engage resources
5. Lack of effective communication and security issues
6. Lack of government sponsorship and strong community support
7. Inertia and lack of interest on both sides
8. Lack of exposure to partnership commitments
9. Lack of awareness of the prospects of cooperative businesses
10. Lack of confidence to cooperate, develop and prosper together

Conclusion

In this changing context, the role of higher education institutions has transformed dramatically. Therefore, the linkage between universities and industries is becoming more important for both universities and industries. To become competitive universities and industries, both sides must continuously adapt to change, expand their roles and functions, and join forces to respond to emerging challenges and new requirements to overcome these barriers.

Source: https://exploringacademia.com/the-10-most-powerful-barriers-in-university-industry-linkages/