Exploring motivations for university-industry collaboration in Sri Lanka

Many advanced economies are at the forefront of the growth of university-industry collaborations. But many developing countries have yet to fully implement this type of important linkage phenomenon. We report some initial findings from our study conducted in Sri Lanka, which shows that fostering some individual level engagement skills would appear to be helpful, not only for increasing the volume of university-industry relations but also their impact. Our questionnaire survey to Sri Lankan universities has confirmed that most existing collaborations with industry are based around student placements in firms and some academics providing individual consultancy to industrial firms. Another important finding in the context of developing countries is that some industrial firms simply remain ignorant as to what universities can provide in terms of new knowledge and support for the firm. Similarly, some universities seem to be unaware of the range of different mechanisms available to explore collaborations and interactions with industrial firms. Some key practical implications are presented, where we argue that the remit of university-industry collaborative projects (e.g. R&D collaboration) might sometimes be too complex to implement in a developing country setting. Hence the risk of failure becomes high, ultimately resulting in some loss of trust between the collaborating partners.