Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market

University R&D Alliances

In this section, the benefits and key elements of university-industry partnerships will be examined. The value of university-industry alliances was underscored by the National Science Foundation: “Companies can benefit from the extensive research infrastructure . . . and store of scientific knowledge . . . at universities” . . . “Universities benefit by . . . channeling academic research toward practical application.”^[5]

^[5] National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators 2000 (2000).

There are several dimensions to university-industry alliances. There can be a single company–single university alliance; an example is the alliance between the Pennsylvania State University and Air Products, which was formed in the late 1990s. There can also be a multicompany–single university partnership (e.g., a consortium). Also, there can be a single company–multiple university partnership as well as a multicompany–multiple university partnership (e.g, the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance [PITA] program, which links Lehigh University with Carnegie Mellon University and Pennsylvania companies). An advantage of multicompany alliances is that they can result in rapid knowledge building for a company with little or no prior experience in a particular technical field; a disadvantage is that the intellectual property (IP) provisions are typically nonexclusive for all member companies.

For the following discussion, we will focus on the single company–single ...