Insolubility as a goal: Joint U-I labs for sustaining paradoxes towards Pasteur-like research

University–industry collaborations (UICs) are increasingly promoted to foster innovation, yet existing research largely treats the tensions they generate as problems to be mitigated or resolved through alignment, proximity, or transfer-oriented governance. Drawing on paradox theory, this paper reconceptualizes UIC tensions as enduring paradoxes that must be actively sustained to support Pasteur-like, use-inspired research. We examine joint university–industry laboratories (JUILs) as organizational arrangements designed to maintain the simultaneous presence of academic and industrial logics. Based on a qualitative study of 13 JUILs supported by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), drawing on 46 interviews and 117 secondary sources, we identify governance mechanisms that institutionalize the four interrelated paradoxes: belonging, performing, organizing, and learning; through dual academic–industrial leadership, shared but revisable research agendas, mutual proposal and veto rights, standardized intellectual property frameworks, bounded autonomy, or iterative steering processes aligned with doctoral research cycles. By mobilizing paradox theory in the context of UICs, the paper shifts attention from tension resolution toward the governance of insolubility, showing how JUILs operate as Pasteur-like research settings beyond technology-transfer logics while satisfying both academic and industrial stakeholders.