ATTRACT: Using experimentation to boost University-Industry collaboration

Collaboration between universities and industry is essential for transforming academic research into practical innovations that can impact the real world. However, the strategies used to make these collaborations possible have often lacked rigorous testing. This has led to uncertainty about which approaches work best in helping researchers and businesses partner effectively. In this regard, a recent study published in the CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation (CIJ), addresses this issue by exploring the potential of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to enhance partnerships between universities and industry.

The study, led by the NEXT project team, highlights how structured experimentation can help design more effective collaboration programs, providing data-driven insights to optimize the engagement of researchers and businesses. By employing RCTs, the study seeks to offer reliable evidence on what works best to foster stronger and more productive collaborations.

One of the outputs of this study is the Handbook on Experiments in University-Industry Collaboration, which identifies critical challenges in these partnerships and proposes experimental ideas to address them. It categorizes interventions based on motivation, capabilities, resources, and matching, and targets either researchers or businesses, particularly SMEs, which often struggle with resources. This handbook proposes experimental ideas to boost researchers’ motivations (intrinsic and extrinsic) and improve their business skills, while businesses benefit from capacity-building efforts to stay current with scientific advances.

Furthermore, the University-Industry Impact Accelerator, a program designed to support the development of experimental interventions, trained participants in the application of RCTs to their own initiatives, allowing them to design experiments that address motivation, capacity-building, and relationship development between researchers and industry partners.

Through this program, three experimental pilot projects were launched. One of them was led by a national innovation agency focused on boosting STEM graduates’ participation in a traineeship program by testing different outreach methods to improve application rates. The second project aimed to improve researchers’ knowledge exchange skills with SMEs through a training program. And the third project, led by a research lab, tested whether direct outreach by researchers or mediation by technology transfer officers was more effective in forming business partnerships.

“As we argue in the paper, this project is showing that experimentation in university-industry collaboration is conceivable, feasible and useful” explains Sara García Arteagoitia, Senior researcher at the Innovation Growth Lab and coordinator of the NEXT project.

NEXT is one of the Socioeconomic Studies (SES) within the ATTRACT ecosystem, which aims to use experimental methods to evaluate and improve science commercialization initiatives, addressing the lack of experimentation in the area of innovation policy. It is coordinated by the Innovation Growth Lab in collaboration with the Barcelona School of Economics, Esade Business School and Nesta.

For more information about the study or to access the full paper, please visit here.

Discover more about the NEXT project here.

This article was first published on 7 November by ATTRACT.