University–industry relationships and open innovation: Towards a research agenda

Organizations increasingly rely on external sources of innovation via inter-organizational network relationships. This paper explores the diffusion and characteristics of collaborative relationships between universities and industry, and develops a research agenda informed by an 'open innovation' perspective. A framework is proposed, distinguishing university–industry relationships from other mechanisms such as technology transfer or human mobility. On the basis of the existing body of research, the role of practices such as collaborative research, university–industry research centres, contract research and academic consulting is analysed. The evidence suggests that such university–industry relationships are widely practised, whereby differences exist across industries and scientific disciplines. While most existing research focuses on the effects of university–industry links on innovation-specific variables such as patents or firm innovativeness, the organizational dynamics of these relationships remain under-researched. A detailed research agenda addresses research needs in two main areas: search and match processes between universities and firms, and the organization and management of collaborative relationships. DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI) 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2007.00225.x Recent studies of innovation have pointed to the growing relevance of external sources of innovation. Rather than relying on internal R&D, organizations are reported to increasingly engage in 'open innovation' (Chesbrough 2006). This means that innovation can be regarded as resulting from distributed inter-organizational networks, rather than from single firms (Coombs et al. 2003; Powell et al. 1996). In the same vein, various concepts of 'interactive' innovation have been put forward to understand the non-linear, iterative and multi-agent character of innovation processes (Kline 1985; Lundvall 1988; von Hippel 1987). This research shows that innovation-relevant links between organizations manifest themselves as network relationships, as opposed to 'arm's-length', transactional market links (DeBresson and Amesse 1991;Freeman 1991; Liebeskind et al. 1996; Powell 1990). Many of these relationships are initiated and maintained as formally established inter-organizational arrangements, such as research and development (R&D) alliances (Hagedoorn et al. 2000) or innovation-centred collaboration along the supply chain (Harabi 1998). Others result from informal social relationships among members of different organizations (Gulati 1998;Oliver and Liebeskind 1998). The relevance of inter-organizational and social networks for