Partnering between industry and academia is not new; however, established models have yielded little returns and there continues to be a need for an optimized partnering model.

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Best practices for successful
industry-academia partnerships
_________________________________________________________
Advisory Services thought leadership
The best approach to developing
innovative product offerings is to
start with the unmet need, define the
product profile that addresses that
need, then innovate to develop a
product that addresses all critical
aspects of that profile. The greatest
innovation leaps happen when
experts from across multiple
disciplines collaborate.
Most companies do not have all the
innovation concepts within their four
walls and must look outside to find
partners with multidisciplinary
expertise. While innovation
collaborations can be found through
various “open source” models, the
deepest knowledge, most easily
accessible, and most concentrated
resources that can be leveraged for a
flexible, scalable and repeatable
partnership model are in the
academic world.
Partnering between industry and
academia is not new; however,
established models have yielded few
returns and there continues to be a
need for an optimized partnering
model.
Current challenges of industry-
academia partnership models
The challenge that most companies
face is that industry speaks a
completely different language from
academia. They operate with different
timelines and milestones. Thus,
despite the numerous industry-
academia initiatives that companies
have embarked on, they have had few
success stories to show for it.
Both academia and industry need to
change the way they approach their
partnerships. Most partnership
models don’t yield commercial
products because they are narrow in
scope, have little structure in the way
of project management (both on the
industry side as well as on the
academic side), are based on
superficial partnerships, and do not
define or track performance.
Challenge 1: Approach
Many partnership models tend to be
based on a “search-and-find”
approach rather than a strategic
fulfillment of an unmet need.
Essentially, the industry partner goes
to the academic institution searching
their current technology portfolio for

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a solution that could potentially help
them address some of their unmet
needs.
Example:
If the critical unmet
need (target product
profile) demands six
key product
features:
1. Fruit
2. Round
3. Orange
4. Iron content of
~0.1 mg
5. Potassium
content of
~180 mg
6. Vitamin A
content of
~225 IU
The search-and-find
method could result
in a product that
fulfills 50% of the
defined product
profile and touches
the other 50% of the
requirements:
1. Fruit
2. Round
3. Red
4. Iron content of
~0.1 mg
5. Potassium
content of ~107
mg
6. Vitamin A
content of ~54
IU
You end up settling for an apple instead
of the desired orange – big difference.
Solution: Lead with strategy
The most successful innovation
partnerships are founded on the
implementation of robust strategies
that define the unmet need. Strategies
should outline who the customers
are, what they want, what the market
will support and what the anticipated
ROI is. Robust strategies are then
translated to product profiles, which
form the foundation for innovation
concepts; delivering end products
that address the strategic
requirements outlined upfront.
It is essential to keep bringing the
innovation concepts back to the
strategy; this will ensure you avoid
embarking on great research ideas or
products that are not commercially
viable, or that you don’t develop a
commercially viable product that
can’t be implemented because of
manufacturing or market access
constraints.
Challenge 2: Scope
Many partnership models tend to be
established on a 1:1 basis (i.e., one
individual/function on the industry
side with one key opinion
leader/department at the academic
institution). While there is value in
these partnerships — including the
development of trusted relationships
— the scope of innovative concepts
is limited to the handful of resources
that are engaged on both sides.
Example:
On the academic side, a computer
scientist can develop a sports app, but
may not be able to make it as
engaging as a gamer could. Or it may
not be as content rich as a sports
management/entertainment expert
would make it. On the industry side,
R&D may be able to dictate the
research needs, but can’t define what
the market demands or what the
optimal go-to-market IT strategy
should be.
An industry-academia partnership
consisting of any combination of
these individuals (i.e., computer
scientist and R&D, or sports
management and commercial) will
likely result in a suboptimal
innovative concept compared to an
industry-academia partnership that
consists of a team with all these
individuals combined.
Solution: Create a broad, inclusive
and multidisciplinary team
Partnerships need to span all
applicable departments of one or

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more academic institutions; enabling
and encouraging all relevant faculty
members to participate in the
innovation discussions. The larger
and more collaborative the approach,
the greater the probability of a more
novel outcome.
Engineers, gamers and fashion
designers are likely to approach
problems in very different ways. Put
them together and the power of their
combined creative thoughts will likely
generate a unique solution to a
problem that none of them would
have found independently.
Partnerships need to also include a
cross-functional team from the
industry side; R&D and commercial
have different views of innovation
and requirements of go-to-market
products; together they complement
each other. The more diverse the
industry team, the more informative
the guidance will be to shape the
solution.
Challenge 3: Type of partnership
Many partnerships are “superficial”
and consist of the industry partner
“throwing money over the fence” to
their academic partner and
communicating the expected
outcome to them. The industry
partner is only slightly engaged or not
at all until the end product is received
from their academic partner.
Example:
An industry partner engages an
academic partner to develop a smart
textile to monitor vital health signs.
They state upfront what they want,
provide the academic institution with
the grant and communicate their
timeline. The academic partner is
confident that they can deliver.
The two groups touch base every two
months for a status update where
they are informed that the research is
on track and the development is
underway. But when the project is
delivered, the industry partner realizes
that the data being captured is not
aligned with what they wanted, the
design doesn’t enable them to
maintain HIPAA compliance, and
commercialization of the proposed
design is tough and expensive.
They conclude that they cannot go to
market with this product. The
academic institution delivered what
their industry partner wanted;
however, deeper analysis reveals that
the details behind the product make it
impossible to take to market.
Solution: Foster deep partnerships
driven by solid project
management
True partnerships require equal
engagement and commitment from
both parties. The industry partner
must drive the direction of the R&D
efforts to ensure the output will
generate commercial value, while
maintaining a sensitive balance so as
not to disrupt or hamper the
innovative ideas stemming from their
academic partner. This type of
partnership requires strategic project
management of the combined
(industry-academia) teams.
It is critical to appoint the right
objective/creative project lead to
manage the industry-academia
innovation partnership. The project
manager must be able to manage

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large complex programs, engage
multidisciplinary teams on both the
academic and industry side, and
contribute to the development of the
innovative product accordingly.
Challenge 4: KPIs
Many industry-academia partnerships
do not establish key performance
indicators (KPIs) that track success of
the partnership, where success is tied
to the development of a prototype or
product that can be commercialized.
Example:
When budgets get reviewed and
senior management asks, “What did
we get for this investment?” —
there’s silence. There are no products
to point to, no KPIs that suggest
growth is on the way, and no long-
term roadmap or strategy that
highlights what the anticipated ROI
is.
Solution: Implement KPIs and
monitor success of partnerships
As both sides of the equation
establish and build these innovation
collaboration models, they must
define the desired outcome of these
partnerships. They must establish
KPIs that can help them track
success of their models in the short,
mid and long term.
KPIs should be established along the
entire innovation value chain and
always linked back to the initiating
strategic goals. Both academic
institutions and industry players
should establish KPIs independently
within their respective entities, but
also jointly with their partners. Some
KPIs to consider include product
licenses (numbers and dollars) arising
directly from partnerships and
products commercialized (numbers
and ROI) as a result of a partnership.
Measure success based on product
transfer and commercialization, not
just completed research initiatives.
Setting the bar high is more
challenging, but it will ultimately
result in robust innovation
partnerships that will fuel future
growth.
Contact
Dalia El-Sherif, PhD
Senior Manager,
Advisory Services
T 215.531.8784
E dalia.el-sherif@us.gt.com
Lisa Walkush
Principal,
Advisory Services
T 215.814.4000
E lisa.walkush@us.gt.com
Key takeaways:
Building successful industry-
academia innovation
partnerships
Innovative solutions are in the
universities — it is a matter of
being able to source and develop
them in an efficient and timely
manner.
 Lead with the strategy and
unmet needs
 Identify and build
multidisciplinary academic
teams to develop innovation
concepts that address those
needs
 Project manage a cross-
functional and multidisciplinary
industry-academia team to
translate the innovative concept
into a tangible and
commercially viable product
 Measure success of your
partnerships and continue to
grow and refine them
accordingly