ABSTRACT
The universities are seen to be an important source, not just of the ultimate intellectual roots of new technologies, but of commercially valuable skills and patentable inventions. The growing experience of campus/company collaborations has created workable management and legal formulas for initiating and maintaining them, and joint organisational structures which offer ways around the barriers. As mutual experience is developed, scientists acquire a better understanding of the need to respect company objectives in order to retain the advantages of industrial sponsorship. Joint research activities with both basic and applied interest, where company scientists are benefiting from the interaction with campus expertise, are more in tune with campus values and will probably prove rewarding. The rules for optimising relationships between the company and the university are basically the same as for any good client/supplier relationship. The more significant effects aimed for are general improvements in company and industry performance, and increased innovativeness.
