The Achilles Heel Of University Industry Partnerships

University-industry partnerships are far from the ideal that the name might imply. Although most of these collaborations technically meet the definition of partnerships by being associations which have joint interests and benefits, the benefits to the participating parties are usually not equal because of a fundamental weakness in the way that the vast majority of these partnerships are set up. The principal weakness (e.g. the Achilles heel) of university-industry partnerships is that the basis of the terms and conditions for most of these relationships is the value system of the university. Little or no emphasis is placed on the values of industry. The value system used to generate the typical terms and conditions is the value system of those schools in the Research I category of the Carnegie Classification System. Not only are the terms and conditions based on the university value system, but also most existing university-industry partnerships are operated based on the needs of the university reward and recognition system with little or no emphasis placed on meeting the needs of industry. This fundamental weakness of not adequately accommodating the values and the needs of industry serves as the basis for most of the friction in university-industry partnerships and severely limits what can ultimately be accomplished in these collaborations.