Industry Academia Collaboration Framework

Parasuram Balasubramanian, Founder & CEO, Theme Work Analytics, Bangalore

& Entrepreneur in Residence at Purdue University, USA

balasubp@gmail.com

Delivered at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management,

Chicago, IL USA on Aug 10, 2009

Research Ecosystem :

Academia Industry

Government

Funding Agency• Funding Agencies and

Government are major stakeholders in the ecosystem.

• All stakeholders need to be nurtured as vital members of the ecosystem.

The research ecosystem consists of many stakeholders with varying objectives

Some fundamental issues arise consistently

due to goal divergence

Industry Perspective

Academic interests

• To be at the cutting edge

• To innovate

• To gain competitive advantage

• To Go to Market quickly

Performance metrics differ

Industry Perspective

Academic interests

• Peer recognition

• Sustained support for graduate students

• Market share, penetration

• Time to market

ScopeDefinition

Management systems and processes differ in design objectives

Industry Perspective

Academic interests Cost

Control

ResourceManagement

open ended

with latitude tightly defined

tightly specifiedTime Management

flexible

mission criticalsubordinated to goal attainment

multi tasking shared resources

dedicated resources

Key issues of conflict

Industry Perspective

Academic interests

Indemnity

Confidentiality

Project Management

Project Scoping

NDA

NDA : Non disclosure Agreement

MOU : Memorandum of Understanding

MRA : Master Research Agreement

SPA : Specific project Agreement

MOU SPAMRA

Framework for Collaboration

The suggested Funding Model can help match objectives of fund sources and research organizations

Basic Research

Grants, Endowments

Grants, Endowments

Industry Associations

Go To Market Phase succeeds the AR(S) Phase.

Applied Research (Generic)

Applied Research (Specific)

Individual firms