Put quality before quantity when building university-industry partnerships

University-industry partnerships are believed to be “silver bullets” for our uncertain world. They are a way for universities to demonstrate engagement beyond teaching and a proof of positive societal impact. They are an opportunity for businesses to access expertise, facilities and future talent. These partnerships take different forms such as student projects, consultancy work, placements, research collaborations and long-term alliances. However, university-industry collaborations are far more challenging to maintain than is often assumed.

Where university-industry partnerships go wrong

Most of these partnerships are limited in scope and duration and centre around a single project. They lose momentum and focus after the initial resources are depleted. Often, partnerships are led by a small number of academics who are willing to invest time and effort, aiming to get promotion or pass their probation periods. When these individuals change roles, or leave the organisation, the partnership either stops or becomes stagnant. 

With insufficient workload allocation, university-industry partnerships are treated as optional or nice to have rather than a core academic activity. Staff may be encouraged to engage with industry but with a lack of support and reward, it is difficult to justify the time spent on building relationships. Moreover, industry engagement is not widely recognised as a disciplinary norm or a valid indicator of academic success. 

Another common issue in university-industry collaborations is the chronic underinvestment in roles that support collaboration, such as partnership managers or industry liaison officers. Without enough investment in these roles, the main burden of initiating and sustaining partnerships falls on academics, who do not necessarily own the skills and knowledge to do so. 

Universities and businesses have different priorities with academic success measured through publications, institutional rankings and teaching evaluations, while business success is tied to financial performance and market share. While acknowledged in principle, these differences are rarely addressed in practice which complicates joint endeavours.

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Current approaches to university-industry collaboration are based on quantity rather than quality, using measures such as the number of partnerships formed, agreements signed and projects completed. These are simple to track; however, they are not a proxy for the depth, quality and durability of partnerships. 

And the result is that efforts are spread across many collaborations, ignoring the necessity of building lasting relationships for real impact. University leaders should reframe partnerships as long-term investments. Fewer partnerships, developed with care and long-term planning, are more likely to generate learning, trust and shared value. Sustainable university-industry collaboration requires a more intentional, institution-level approach built around partnership capability.

What distinguishes successful university-industry partnerships?

Successful partnerships need clear governance, where roles and responsibilities are defined from the outset, rather than left to evolve over time. 

Aligning expectations is key. Each party is clear about what they expect from the partnership and what they can realistically offer. The partners should agree on milestones while allowing flexibility to accommodate uncertainty and change and to make the partnership more resilient.

One example of a successful partnership is the decade-long collaboration between the Centre for Healthcare Innovation and Improvement (CHI2) at the University of Bath School of Management and regional NHS healthcare organisations. This collaboration has led not only to successful student projects, but also to tangible improvements in healthcare delivery including supporting the setting up of mass vaccination centres during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

A key reason for the sustained success of the collaboration has been the involvement of a wide range of colleagues over the years, from doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to professors, which ensured that the initiative did not depend on a single individual. The centre has benefited from stable leadership, with the same director serving for the past twelve years. As with other research centres at the School of Management, the director of CHI2 receives workload remission to support the development of activities and the expansion of external partnerships. 

The centre’s work has also benefited from the growing recognition impact and engagement has received in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), which encourages closer collaboration between universities and external partners. Given the nature of the work, however, one persistent challenge has been data sharing and ethical approval processes. Over time, this has become easier to navigate through the signing of memoranda of understanding which have facilitated project-specific data-sharing agreements. Nevertheless, continued institutional investment and support remain essential to sustain the collaboration.

Another success story is Bucharest Business School, where academics were invited to work with a dedicated partnership team to embed initiatives into core institutional activities. Only a few projects were progressed, with one evolving into a distinctive regional MBA in Education. The development of the programme was made possible through the collaboration and support of partners, including consultancy EY Romania, the World Bank Romania and AVE (the Association for Values in Education) Romania. These partners contributed expertise, an international perspective, practical insights into governance, policy, and organisational transformation, as well as financial resources during the development phase. Their involvement helped ensure that the curriculum reflects global best practices as well as the specific needs of Romanian education, creating a programme that prepares participants to lead meaningful change across Romania’s schools, universities and other education institutions. 

To support the initiative, the business school established a dedicated team to develop the programme and manage it after the first intake. The path to success involved bringing together multiple partners, moving from short-term collaborations to a longer-term vision, and allocating the appropriate dedicated resources to ensure the programme’s sustainability and growth.

These two examples demonstrate how institutional support and long-term commitment can generate lasting impact.

Key actions for successful university-industry partnership 

• Senior university leaders should introduce criteria such as strategic alignment and resource requirements to review existing partnerships and decide which ones to strengthen, pause or finish. 
• Clear governance requires the designation of academic leads and dedicated partnership managers, to ensure continuity and reduce reliance on a small number of individuals. 
• Heads of school and HR departments should recognise partnership activity within workload models, staff development provision and promotion criteria.
• Senior leaders should signal the strategic importance of partnerships through formal channels such as strategy documents and annual staff performance reviews, not solely through informal encouragement.
• At the outset of a partnership, academic leads and industry counterparts should jointly agree a clear project plan, explicitly negotiating time horizons, expectations, and shared exposure to risk.
• A practical starting point is to pilot this approach on a limited number of lower-risk collaborations before scaling the model more.

Soheil Davari is an associate professor and director of accreditations in the School of Management at the University of Bath; Vasile Alecsandru Strat is professor at Bucharest University of Economic Studies and dean of Bucharest Business School. 

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