Partnering with industry positive for researchers, to a point
According to an article published last year, partnering with industry is beneficial for researchers, so long as the partnership doesn’t account for more than 15% of the researcher’s total budget. The article, published in Scientometrics, details a case study of two Spanish universities, and finds that “university-industry relations” (UIR) have a positive influence on research productivity so long as they are focused on R&D contracts and when the funds involved constitute no more than 15% of the researchers’ total budget. The authors also discover that researchers that participate in UIR win more funding from competitive private sources, exhibit higher productivity, and achieve higher standing in their institutions.
(Thanks to Daniel Lemire’s consistently interesting blog, which brought the article to my attention).
