Academia and Industry: How Do They Get Along?

Key takeaways

GDP grows for countries with higher R&D expenditure, businesses partnering with educational institutions gain a competitive advantage, academia gets access to real-world applications, employees benefit from externalities generated;
Some of the industry leading companies: Amazon, NVIDIA, Google, IBM, Shell, Siemens – demonstrate robust R&D effort;
For the MENA region, partnerships involving NYU Abu Dhabi, Sorbonne and Khalifa University, American University of Sharjah in the UAE and KAUST in Saudi Arabia are mentioned among other best practice examples.

Globalization may lose its speed: international high-tech trade growth rates fluctuate sharply, the number of restrictive measures and inward-looking industrial policies grows, manufacturers redefine global value chains due to technological change and geopolitical instability.

World high-tech exports, 2017-2024 (annual growth rate, %)

Source: WIPO

Competing agendas hinder cross-sector communication, further affecting academic-industry partnerships (AIP). Companies, endeavoring to establish R&D sites abroad, encounter unwillingness to cooperate – difficulties in quality control, research approach and requirements clarification eventually force them to opt out of foreign teams. Now, when the competition is fiercer than ever, financial and human capital constraints, and IP rights issues become their biggest woes. The greatest challenge though is actors questioning efficiency of academia-industry collaboration.

AIP Stakeholders: What For?

1. Countries, allocating a higher percentage of their GDP to R&D, average to rank better and succeed in technological and scientific discoveries more:

Countries by R&D Spending

No.	Country	R&D spending (% of GDP)	World Competitiveness Ranking	Nominal GDP per capita Ranking	Advancement Areas
1	Israel	5,56	22	21	ICT, biotechnology
2	Korea Rep.	4,93	20	33	semiconductors, electronics, automotive industries
3	United States	3,46	12	6	technology, finance, healthcare
4	Belgium	3,43	18	16	chemicals, logistics, pharmaceuticals
5	Sweden	3,42	6	15	telecommunications, biotech, engineering
6	Switzerland	3,36	2	2	pharmaceuticals, precision engineering, finance
7	Japan	3,30	38	39	electronics, robotics, automotive
8	Austria	3,26	26	14	technology, renewable energy, manufacturing
9	Germany	3,14	24	17	automotive, engineering, chemicals
10	Finland	2,99	15	18	telecommunications, clean technology, education technology

Sources: WORLDOSTATS, IMD, IMF, StatisticsTimes (data for 2024)

Moreover, a fundamental study, covering data from 1950 to 2010 for about 15 000 universities in 1500 regions across 78 economies, revealed a positive correlation between the number of universities and a country’s future GDP per capita (10% increase – 0,4% growth).

2. Academic partnerships enable businesses to make breakthroughs and enhance their market competitiveness. These are some cases with the major industry players:

Company-Academic Collaborations

Company	Industry	Academic Partner	Fields
Amazon, NVIDIA	Technology	University of Washington, University of Tsukuba	generative AI, multimodal systems
Google	Technology	UC Berkeley, Columbia University	chemistry simulations, quantum computing
IBM	Technology	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	quantum computing
Siemens Energy	Manufacturing	University of Strathclyde	digitalization of wind farms, energy storage, resilient grids, superconductivity
Shell	Oil & Gas	University of Houston	carbon management, hydrogen, circular plastics
Alliance for Automotive Innovation	Automotive	University of Tennessee	auto-related government policy research
Bristol-Myers Squibb	Healthcare	UTSA	chemical reactions, pharmaceutical manufacturing routes
Alibaba Cloud	Cloud Computing, Retail	Universiti Malaya	workforce development

Sources: Amazon, NVIDIA, Google, IBM, Siemens Energy, Shell, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Alibaba Cloud

Furthermore, academia fosters entrepreneurship: 100 universities, with UC Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard at the helm, accounted for nearly 43 600 startup founders in 2024.

3. Through partnerships with leading companies, educational institutions gain access to advanced technologies and industry insights, enabling them to optimize research infrastructure (often with industry sponsorship), modify research agendas, and adjust programs to sector-specific demands, thereby amplifying their social impact.

4. With 78 million new job opportunities projected to emerge by 2030, academia plays a pivotal role in addressing labour market gaps due to the urgent upskilling needs.

University-Corporate Partnerships: Regional Focus

KSA- and UAE-based institutions are the key drivers of AIPs in the MENA region:

KAUST renewed its R&D collaboration with Ericsson to propel 5G and 6G in Saudi Arabia, and entered into an MoU with Saudi Aramco to support research on liquids-to-chemicals conversion, future refineries, and low-carbon aviation fuels;
Khalifa University, UAE, maintains over 50 active relationships, including those with ADNOC, Boeing, BP, Emirates Global Aluminum, etc., covering aerospace, biomedical engineering, healthcare, national security, telecommunications, IT, and nuclear energy;
NYU Abu Dhabi partnered with the Emirati company, e&, to expand programming in wireless technology through internships and research opportunities;
Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi signed an agreement with the TII, a technology research center, for joint projects in quantum physics, alongside exchange programs;
UAE-based MBZUAI lists IBM, Masdar City, AIQ, and GE Healthcare as its industrial partners in AI innovation & application;
American University of Sharjah, UAE, joined forces with AWS to empower faculty, researchers, and students with cloud resources;
RIT Dubai Research improves cybersecurity on Android systems in partnership with Abu Dhabi University.

Significant progress has been made so far in uniting academia and industry:

Aligning with the UAE Centennial 2071 vision to create a knowledge-based economy, STI Policy, funding R&D in 7 sectors, and numerous deep tech programs (AI Strategy 2031, the UAE Space Agency, the Technology Transformation Program) were launched.
Driven by the RDIA initiatives (2025 Research Grants, Semiconductor Training Program, Gulf Capital Partnership), the number of researchers in the private sector more than doubled from 1 224 in 2021 to 2 790 in 2023, with the total figure growing at a CAGR of 14% over the three-year period.
Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) is a hub for academia-industry partnerships, hosting over 200 tech companies.
Bahrain’s Higher Education Council (HEC) promotes university-corporate linkages through the Bahrain Economic Vision 2030 (the University of Bahrain and AWS).

There is considerable room for improvement though. Universities lack industry expertise, while businesses’ choke point is a broader perspective: unique knowledge, unpublished research. To bridge the gaps, governments should continue encouraging scientific research and focus more on mitigating skill deficiencies and maximizing effectiveness of R&D incentives. If joint ventures and licensing agreements are the first priority, tailored funding mechanisms and proactive IP management come to the fore.

Academia and Industry: How Do They Get Along?

Key takeaways

AIP Stakeholders: What For?

University-Corporate Partnerships: Regional Focus

References