Institutionalization of university-industry interaction: an empirical study of the impact of formal structures on collaboration patterns

This article addresses the increasing formalization of cross-sector collaboration between universities and industry seen in the development of public funding schemes such as collaborative research centers (CRCs). This policy trend is analyzed in the article and investigated empirically, treating the organizational arrangements supporting cross-sector collaboration as a dependent variable, where the purpose is to investigate institutionalization processes through a number of case studies of university-industry collaboration. The investigation indicates that less formal, project-based collaborations, contrary to policy assumptions, often display a higher degree of institutionalization than CRCs, and that CRCs represent highly formal but weakly institutionalized frameworks of collaboration. The main reason is that centers involve several industrial partners and as a consequence CRCs represent several different modalities of collaboration at the same time. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.