University-Business Collaboration: We want the same things, so why is it so difficult?
Over the past few years, I’ve spoken to many academics and businesses, particularly small businesses, about collaboration.
Those conversations have made me increasingly positive about what is possible.
Our universities contain extraordinary expertise, facilities and ideas. Our small businesses bring ingenuity, commercial insight and real-world problems that need solving. When those strengths come together, businesses can test and validate ideas, overcome technical challenges, develop better products and build the confidence and evidence they need to grow.
There are fantastic collaborators on both sides. Yet the same barriers arise surprisingly often.
Usually, the problem is not a lack of ambition. It is language, expectations, trust and knowing where to begin.
We really do speak different languages
It has become a cliché that businesses and academics speak different languages, but there is more than a little truth in it.
A business might say it has a problem involving sugar. An academic might describe their expertise in polysaccharides.
They could be ideal partners and still fail to find each other.
Businesses often describe the outcome they need. They want to extend the life of a product, reduce energy use, find a more sustainable material or understand why something is failing.
Academics are more likely to describe their research interests, specialist expertise and methodologies.
Neither approach is wrong. They simply start from different places.
The language is different, but the underlying objective is often the same.
Effective collaboration depends on translation. Businesses need to express their challenges in ways that connect with academic capabilities, while universities need to present their research and expertise in terms that make sense outside academia.
If we make that translation easier, many more valuable conversations will follow.
Start with a conversation
Intellectual property and confidentiality are another recurring theme.
Universities are right to think carefully about IP, ownership and protecting the value created by their researchers. Businesses care deeply about IP too. For a small innovative company, its ideas and intellectual property may represent much of its future value.
But small businesses are often prepared to begin with a straightforward discovery conversation:
“Can we talk and see whether there is something worth exploring?”
Academic conversations can sometimes move towards non-disclosure agreements and IP arrangements very quickly. Those protections matter, but they should not prevent an initial discussion about a challenge, particularly when that conversation can take place without either side disclosing commercially sensitive information.
The first questions can be simple:
What are you trying to achieve?
What problem are you facing?
What have you already tried?
Is there relevant expertise here?
Is this worth exploring together?
If there is genuine potential, the partners can then agree what needs protecting and how to proceed.
The first objective should be to establish whether there is a reason to collaborate.
Businesses need realistic expectations too
Universities are not responsible for all the friction.
I have met small-business owners who are completely convinced they have developed the next world-changing idea. Passion and self-belief are essential qualities for an entrepreneur, particularly when they are trying to build something new.
But enthusiasm can sometimes become an expectation that academics should immediately recognise the brilliance of the idea and rush to support it.
They will not, and nor should they.
Academics are not a resource waiting to be deployed by the first business with an exciting proposition. They have their own research interests, responsibilities, pressures and priorities. A successful collaboration has to provide intellectual, practical or societal value for them too.
More importantly, the most valuable contribution an academic makes may not be immediate endorsement.
It may be challenge.
Is the science robust?
Is the idea genuinely new?
What evidence supports it?
What assumptions are being made?
Has somebody tried something similar before?
What would need to be tested before the idea could progress?
An entrepreneur may want to hear that their idea is brilliant. What they often need is an informed, independent perspective that makes the idea stronger.
Being asked a difficult question at the right time can be far more valuable than receiving easy encouragement.
University partnerships give small businesses access to expertise and facilities.
This is why more small businesses should see universities as a practical innovation resource, not as remote institutions that are difficult to approach.
A small business does not have to arrive with a fully designed research project. It can start with a commercial problem, an untested assumption or an idea that needs evidence.
Working with a university can help a business:
test and validate an idea;
explore whether the underlying science or technology is sound;
access specialist knowledge and perspectives;
investigate a difficult technical problem;
use facilities or capabilities it could not maintain internally;
build evidence to support investment or further development;
understand what additional research is required; and
strengthen a product, process or service before taking it further.
Universities can also help businesses discover that the original question was not quite the right one.
That is not a failure. It is one of the most valuable outcomes of collaboration. Testing an assumption before investing heavily in it can save a small business considerable time, money and effort.
Universities are not there simply to confirm what a business already believes. They help businesses learn, test, improve and grow.
Commercial success and research impact can work together
Businesses are not the only side that sometimes arrives with fixed assumptions.
I have occasionally encountered discomfort among academics about a business making a profit from research or knowledge developed within a university.
The concern is understandable. Universities must protect their intellectual property and ensure that the value created through research is properly recognised. Publicly supported research should not simply be handed over without thought about ownership, benefit and impact.
But commercial success and research impact are not opposing ideas.
For research to become a product, technology, process or service that people use, somebody normally has to invest in it, develop it, manufacture or deliver it, find customers and accept the commercial risk involved.
Businesses bring market knowledge, customer insight, investment, applications and routes to adoption. Universities bring research, specialist knowledge, facilities and people who can examine problems from entirely different perspectives.
Neither side has the complete answer.
The question should not simply be:
“Who is going to profit from this?”
A more useful question is:
“How do we create something valuable together and ensure that everyone involved receives appropriate value from it?”
The strongest collaborations recognise what each partner contributes and build an arrangement that works for both.
Funding is part of the conversation
One question comes up consistently from academics and businesses alike:
“Is there funding available for this?”
For an SME, committing scarce cash and staff time to uncertain research and development can be difficult. For an academic, funding may be what turns an interesting discussion into a viable project.
Businesses and academics therefore need help to connect three things:
a clearly defined challenge;
relevant expertise and capabilities; and
an appropriate route to funding or support.
Funding should not be treated as an afterthought. It is often central to making collaboration possible.
A productive starting point is: Here is the challenge. Here is the relevant expertise. Here is what we could achieve together. And here is what might enable us to proceed.
That creates a much clearer basis for deciding whether an opportunity is worth pursuing.
Some collaborators need a gentle nudge
There are natural collaborators on both sides.
An academic hears a business problem and immediately says:
“That is interesting. Let’s talk.”
A business owner hears about an unfamiliar area of research and thinks:
“I do not completely understand that yet, but it could be relevant to what we are doing.”
These are often the conversations that move most quickly.
Other people need a gentle nudge.
That is entirely understandable. Collaboration takes time, involves uncertainty and requires people to invest in conversations that may not lead to a project.
For small businesses, collaboration also competes with customers, cash flow, recruitment and the hundred other demands involved in running a company. For academics, it competes with research, teaching, funding applications and existing partnerships.
A potential match is therefore not enough.
Successful collaboration needs relevance, trust and momentum. Both parties need a clear reason to take the next step.
This is where konfer makes a difference
Businesses should not need to understand the structure of UK higher education before they can benefit from it.
An SME should not have to know which university, faculty, department or academic to approach before it can ask for help.
The starting point can be much simpler:
What are you trying to achieve?
What problem are you trying to solve?
What idea do you want to validate?
What evidence are you missing?
What capability or expertise would help you move forward?
From the other direction, academics should not have to anticipate every possible commercial application of their research.
Konfer makes a difference by bringing real business challenges and academic capabilities closer together, creating conversations that otherwise might not happen.
It changes the starting point.
Instead of expecting businesses to navigate the university system and identify the right academic themselves, konfer helps connect challenges with capabilities.
That is the crucial shift.
A business does not need to know the academic terminology for its problem. An academic does not need to predict the precise language a business will use. What matters is identifying the underlying connection.
Konfer makes those connections easier to discover and gives both sides a clearer reason to start talking.
The human element matters
Technology alone does not create collaboration.
Sometimes a business needs help articulating its challenge. Sometimes an academic needs help seeing how their expertise applies in an unexpected commercial context.
Sometimes an SME needs its assumptions challenged. Sometimes both sides need help understanding the funding and support that could move the opportunity forward.
And sometimes they simply need someone to say:
“I think you two should talk.”
This is where konfer makes the difference.
It is not simply about finding universities, businesses, expertise and opportunities. It is about reducing the friction that prevents potentially valuable collaborations from getting started.
It helps people move from:
“I have an idea.”
to:
“There is relevant expertise here.”
to:
“Let’s have a conversation.”
and ultimately:
“Let’s see what we can do together.”
We already have the ingredients
We do not have a shortage of ideas.
We do not have a shortage of expertise.
And we certainly do not have a shortage of ambition.
What we sometimes lack are the connections between them.
Small businesses should not see universities as intimidating institutions that are difficult to navigate. Universities are powerful resources for businesses seeking to innovate, validate ideas, solve problems and grow.
But businesses must approach universities as partners, not as resources that should be grateful for the opportunity to work on their idea.
Universities do not need to abandon sensible protections around research and intellectual property. They do need to make exploratory conversations as straightforward as possible.
Both sides need to recognise the value the other brings. Both need to be prepared to listen, be challenged and adjust their assumptions.
That is why I am confident about the future of university-business collaboration.
The ingredients are already here: ambitious businesses, outstanding research, specialist expertise, talented people and a shared desire to turn good ideas into practical outcomes.
Konfer connects those ingredients.
It helps businesses express what they need, enables universities to recognise where their expertise is relevant and creates a clearer route towards a meaningful first conversation.
Our task is not to convince businesses and universities that collaboration matters. Most already understand that.
Our task is to make collaboration easier to start.
And sometimes that begins by recognising that when one person is talking about sugar and the other is talking about polysaccharides, they are already closer than they think.
Graham Doe
Business Engagement Manager (konfer)
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