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profit that provides a return to investors.
In general, companies manage science for
profit and often prefer to protect confidential
information from early disclosure, as can be
seen in Figure 1.
Competition in the market place requires
short development times and proper
management of intellectual property that
restricts publication of research outcomes.
However, modern society based on knowledge,
economy growth and better living conditions
can not be achieved without close cooperation
between universities and enterprises.
Interactions between universities and
enterprises are beneficial to both sides. Benefits
to universities come from complementing
their own academic research and from
commercialization of research results. Benefits
to companies come from increased access to
new university research and discoveries.
6.2 Benefits for key actors in the
knowledge triangle
It is widely acknowledged that the
commercialization of scientific and
technological knowledge produced in public
funded research institutions, including
universities and research centers, to the
marketplace have a fundamental role to play
in wealth creation, supports economic growth
and technological innovation, and plays
a significant role in new venture creation,
growth of existing firms and new job creation.
All actors in the knowledge triangle (Figure 2)
should have benefits from university-enterprise
cooperation bearing in mind large number of
people included in this triangle. Universities
are repositories of knowledge about future
technological, economic, and social trends due to
numerous stakeholders (internal and external). The
major stakeholders are academics, researchers,
professionals, students, institutional leaders
and managers, national governments, national
agencies and advisory bodies, supranational
bodies (World Bank, OECD, etc.), and businesses
and industry (including both multinational and
small- and medium-sized enterprises – SMEs).
University-enterprise cooperation can take
many forms from which key actors in the
knowledge triangle should have benefits. In
what follows some of them are described.
In the field of teaching and training, benefits
of key actors can be through:
• Industry participation in academic planning
and course design;
• In-kind support by industry (donation
of equipment, student scholarships,
teaching grants);
• Secondment of staff by industry to
university as part-time professors,
visiting professors, etc.;
• Industry provision of on-the-job training
opportunities (summer jobs) and of parttime
work opportunities;
• Delivery of specialized courses by universities
(continuing education, executive development,
specialized customized programs);
• Participation of university professors in
industry-led professional development
activities, faculty consulting in industry,
participation on company Boards and
other industry-driven committees.
In the field of research, industrial support to
the university can be through the following
activities:
• Research grants and research contracts;
• Donation of equipment;
• Access to industry research facilities.
The transfer of knowledge and technology from
universities to enterprises occurs through a
number of pathways, but the most prominent
pathways are:
• The training of students (theses, class
projects, practice);
• The publication of research results in the
scientific or technical publications;
• Common participation in conferences
and seminars.
Other methods that result in the transfer of
knowledge are through: