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Developing Successful Strategic Partnerships with Universities
Article

Developing Successful Strategic Partnerships with Universities


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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Innovation-enhancing relationships between industry and universities are becoming more ambitious, more sophisticated – and more demanding of the partners involved. Writing for the MIT Sloan Management Review, innovation experts Lars Frølund and Fiona Murray and university relations consultant Max Riedel draw on four years of research, plus their collective experience with industry-university collaborations, to offer valuable insights into what these partnerships offer – and what they demand. getAbstract recommends this meaty article to R&D and venture executives and their university partners.

Summary

For decades, companies have embraced innovation-enhancing relationships with universities. Today, strategic industry-university partnerships can serve as important venues for companies to engage with the broader innovation ecosystem and pursue a variety of significant innovation goals – along with the more direct products of these partnerships, such as knowledge gains and talent discovery. However, companies frequently don’t approach these collaborations with adequate forethought and strategy. As a result, goal misalignment...

About the Authors

Lars Frølund is a visiting fellow at the MIT Innovation Initiative. Fiona Murray is the William Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-director of the MIT Innovation Initiative. Max Riedel is a consultant on university relations for Siemens AG in Munich, Germany.