Governance and success of university-industry collaborations on the basis of Ph.D. projects: an explorative study

Faced with ever-increasing pressure to innovate and perform, firms consider universities as a significant, external source of knowledge. There is a variety of ways through which such knowledge flow can take place, including academic publications, contract research, staff mobility and university patents and licenses, but also more collaborative modes such as joint research projects. This paper focuses on a specific – and promising – collaborative model, in which firms and universities are together involved in a Ph.D. project, carried out by a doctoral candidate. We model the relationship on the one hand on various aspects of governance, and the success of the collaboration on the other. Here, success is operationalized in a number of different ways, including the successful transfer, the application and the commercialization of knowledge. Our model was tested using a survey conducted at the Eindhoven University of Technology. We conclude that governance decisions have a significant impact on the ultimate success. Among other things, the choice of university supervisor plays a pivotal role. Moreover, success is more likely if there is joint decision-making by both university and partner on the content of the project, and communication between the Ph.D. candidate and their supervisor in the firm has a high frequency and quality. We believe our findings can help universities and firms to collaborate successfully.