ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Organizational Communication
University vs. Industry: How Does the Type of Organization Shape Expectations, Problems, and Solutions in Collaborative Research?
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hochschule fur Musik Theater und Medien Hannover, Hanover, Germany
- 2Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 3Center for Advanced Internet Studies, Bochum, Germany
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While research on university-industry collaboration has significantly increased in recent years, there is still little knowledge about collaboration problems and their solutions for this particular form of joint research. Drawing from existing insight on research collaboration and systematization of university and non-academic collaboration, we aim to detect differences regarding what expectations, problems, and solutions that university and industry members deem relevant for university-industry collaboration. We conducted three focus group discussions with lead collaborators in Germany. With the help of Qualitative Content Analysis, we developed an accurate and theoretically informed and empirically differentiated ranking that catalogues their expectations and perceptions of problems and solutions. Our results reveal more differences than commonalities. Concerning the expectations with respect to how collaboration should work, for example, while researchers from universities focus on the exchange of knowledge and education. , iIndustry members, in contrast, primarily expect innovative growth of knowledge and consequent economically relevant problem solving. Overall, it appears that the type of organization acts as a distinct perceptual filter: while university members follow a logic of "thinking in persons", industry members adhere to a logic of "thinking in structures".
Keywords: collaboration expectations, Collaboration problems, collaboration solutions, Focus group discussions, Research collaboration, university-industry collaboration
Received: 03 Dec 2025; Accepted: 12 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Weinmann, Huneke and Vowe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Carina Weinmann
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