Collaboration between Higher Education and Industry: An Overview

Abstract

In recent years, the question of collaboration between higher education and industry has become a highly topical issue, and there are few countries or international organisations in which colloquia, seminars or conferences have not been held or studies conducted on the subject [1]. As compared with only 10 or 15 years ago, the climate of opinion now associated with it is strikingly different. At about the start of the 1970s, the topic was widely regarded as almost taboo, an attitude linked partly no doubt to the late 1960s student unrest. When it occurred at all, discussion usually centred on the dangers or disadvantages of closer links between universities and industries rather than on their possible benefits. Today, all governments, irrespective of political allegiance, are calling for this kind of co-operation and introducing such measures as they regard appropriate in order to facilitate it. Why the dramatic shift in attitude? A number of factors may be advanced by way of at least a partial explanation, as follows: