Exploring the role of conferences in industry-academia collaborations

Industry-academia collaborations have been acknowledged as a crucial mechanism for innovation in the knowledge-based economy. Research indicates that the informal communication channels established at conferences may provide opportunities for the establishment of more formal collaborations between researchers and practitioners. However, limited academic attention has been paid to understand how conferences influence the establishment and maintenance of collaborative relationships. Based on the interaction-relationship model and relationship learning theory, this study aims to explore interactions between researchers and practitioners at conferences and how their interactions at conferences influence their formal collaborations. This research will apply qualitative methodology, and semi-structured interviews will be conducted for data collection. Both researchers and practitioners having experiences in attending conferences with industry-academia engagement will be targeted. This study will provide a better understanding of conferences and collaboration motivations, barriers, and enablers for academia, industry and conference organizers, and offer policy implications for government innovation agenda

Industry-academia collaborations in software testing: experience and success stories from Canada and Turkey : Special Issue Industry Academia Collaborations in Software Testing

Collaboration between industry and academia supports improvement and innovation in industry and helps to ensure industrial relevance in academic research. However, many researchers and practitioners believe that the level of joint industry–academia collaborations (IAC) in software engineering (SE) is still relatively very low, compared to the amount of activity in each of the two communities. The goal of the empirical study reported in this paper is to characterize a set of collaborative industry–academia R&D projects in the area of software testing conducted by the authors (based in Canada and Turkey) with respect to a set of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns identified by a recent Systematic Literature Review study, with the aim of contributing to the body of evidence in the area of IAC, for the benefit of SE researchers and practitioners in conducting successful IAC projects in software testing and in software engineering in general. To address the above goal, a pool of ten IAC projects (six completed, two failed and two ongoing) all in the area of software testing, which the authors have led or have had active roles in, were selected as objects of study and were analyzed (both quantitatively and qualitatively) with respect to the set of selected challenges, patterns and anti-patterns. As outputs, the study presents a set of empirical findings and evidence-based recommendations, e.g.: it has been observed that even if an IAC project may seem perfect from many aspects, one single major challenge (e.g., disagreement in confidentiality agreements) can lead to its failure. Thus, we recommend that both parties (academics and practitioners) consider all the challenges early on and proactively work together to eliminate the risk of challenges in IAC projects. We furthermore report correlation and interrelationship of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns with project success measures. This study hopes to encourage and benefit other SE researchers and practitioners in conducting successful IAC projects in software testing and in software engineering in general in the future

Industry–Academia Research Collaboration and Knowledge Co-creation: Patterns and Anti-patterns

Increasing the impact of software engineering research in the software industry and the society at large has long been a concern of high priority for the software engineering community. The problem of two cultures, research conducted in a vacuum (disconnected from the real world), or misaligned time horizons are just some of the many complex challenges standing in the way of successful industry–academia collaborations. This article reports on the experience of research collaboration and knowledge co-creation between industry and academia in software engineering as a way to bridge the research–practice collaboration gap. Our experience spans 14 years of collaboration between researchers in software engineering and the European and Norwegian software and IT industry. Using the participant observation and interview methods, we have collected and afterwards analyzed an extensive record of qualitative data. Drawing upon the findings made and the experience gained, we provide a set of 14 patterns and 14 anti-patterns for industry–academia collaborations, aimed to support other researchers and practitioners in establishing and running research collaboration projects in software engineering.publishedVersio

Industry-Academia Collaborations: The Shell Sabbatical Model

The quality of graduates produced by any institution is assessed by the ability of those graduates to add value to the business of their employers. Research has shown that the factors with the greatest impact on the quality of the graduates include the quality of the curriculum, the delivery method, the quality of the lecturers and the motivation of the students. The shell sabbatical model takes University lecturers with relevant proposals and integrates them into the company for a period of One year giving them the opportunity of participating fully in the company operations. This provides them with an opportunity to learn the culture of the industry and understand the skill requirement of the industry while contributing to the company business. It also provides these lecturers with an insight into the needs of the industry thus shaping their research directions. This model impacts on the quality of the lecturer, the curriculum and the teaching method by providing the lecturer with access to the latest technology in the industry, enabling the lecturer to identify relevant modifications that should be made to the curriculum of his courses and changing his teaching methods as he is now able to teach with practical examples and real life illustrations and scenarios. This also results in an increased motivation as they are taught with real life scenarios and examples. This paper reviews the Shell sabbatical model and presents some results on it

Characterizing industry-academia collaborations in software engineering: evidence from 101 projects

Research collaboration between industry and academia supports improvement and innovation in industry and helps ensure the industrial relevance of academic research. However, many researchers and practitioners in the community believe that the level of joint industry-academia collaboration (IAC) projects in Software Engineering (SE) research is relatively low, creating a barrier between research and practice. The goal of the empirical study reported in this paper is to explore and characterize the state of IAC with respect to industrial needs, developed solutions, impacts of the projects and also a set of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns identified by a recent Systematic Literature Review (SLR) study. To address the above goal, we conducted an opinion survey among researchers and practitioners with respect to their experience in IAC. Our dataset includes 101 data points from IAC projects conducted in 21 different countries. Our findings include: (1) the most popular topics of the IAC projects, in the dataset, are: software testing, quality, process, and project managements; (2) over 90% of IAC projects result in at least one publication; (3) almost 50% of IACs are initiated by industry, busting the myth that industry tends to avoid IACs; and (4) 61% of the IAC projects report having a positive impact on their industrial context, while 31% report no noticeable impacts or were “not sure”. To improve this situation, we present evidence-based recommendations to increase the success of IAC projects, such as the importance of testing pilot solutions before using them in industry. This study aims to contribute to the body of evidence in the area of IAC, and benefit researchers and practitioners. Using the data and evidence presented in this paper, they can conduct more successful IAC projects in SE by being aware of the challenges and how to overcome them, by applying best practices (patterns), and by preventing anti-patterns.The authors would like to thank the researchers and practitioners who participated in this survey. João M. Fernandes was supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013. Dietmar Pfahl was supported by the institutional research grant IUT20-55 of the Estonian Research Council. Andrea Arcuri was supported by the Research Council of Norway (grant agreement No 274385). Mika Mäntylä was partially supported by Academy of Finland grant and ITEA3 / TEKES grant

Creating Minimum Viable Products in Industry-Academia Collaborations

Customer value determines how products and services succeed in the marketplace. Early assessment of customer value is important for software startups, spin-off companies, and new product development in existing companies. Software technology often influences customer value and typically defines the main competitive advantage in both entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial settings. Value-related feedback from real customers is needed during software development and maintenance, and decision-making should be increasingly based on empirical evidence acquired through experiments. Getting such value-related feedback usually requires a so-called minimum viable product (MVP), i.e., an artefact that is far away from being mature with respect to functionality or quality, but displays characteristics that allows determining its customer value. In this article we report on a case study which used industry-academia collaboration for creating such an MVP. Our goal was to identify strengths and weaknesses of such a way of creating MVPs while providing practical recommendations for improvement. The process followed in the case study was found to be very suitable in creating MVPs, reducing company-specific risks with respect to testing customer-value, and advancing university education.Peer reviewe

Factors Influencing Interdisciplinary Research and Industry-Academia Collaborations at Six European Universities: A Qualitative Study

The introduction of interdisciplinarity and industry-academia collaborations (IAC) into higher education institutions (HEIs) and curricula as tools for promoting sustainable development has been debated both in academic and non-academic contexts. While overall rising trends in the acceptance of interdisciplinarity and IAC exist, research has stressed difficulty in implementation and practices. We conducted eight focus groups at six European Universities (members of the SEA-EU alliance) and analysed the transcripts using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic approach to qualitative analysis in order to develop themes on barriers and facilitators to both conducting interdisciplinarity and IAC, as well as the inclusion of university students in interdisciplinary research. We observed that the main barriers to IR and IAC and the inclusion of students in such activities include traditional HEI structures focused on single-discipline approaches, a lack of joint platforms for IR and IAC, and academic differences (publication outcome differences, academic background). Likewise, a lack of funding (especially for early career researchers), employability (for students willing to do a research career), and a lack of validation by HEIs for researchers conducting IR and IAC are major barriers. To IDR- and IAC-related activities, a top-down approach is needed to restructure HEIs and make them more accommodating to both students and staff willing to conduct IR and IAC activities, thus refocusing them towards sustainability

The importance of boundary objects in industry-academia collaborations to support evidencing the efficacy of educational technology

The context of a 2.5 year academia-led programme for the educational technology sector in the United Kingdom is used to explore the role of logic models as boundary objects to support the programme objectives. The programme provided educational research training and mentoring to participants from 252 small and medium-sized enterprises to support them with the use of existing and self-generated evidence of the efficacy of their educational technologies. Participants from a deliberate sample of six enterprises were interviewed to elicit their perceptions of the process through which the creation and use of a logic model for their product or service did or did not become a useful tool to support their research and business goals. The results suggest that logic models have vital roles as boundary objects in this context, such as supporting communication, learning, and product development. The study offers a first-case example of how logic models can be used in the design of educational technology, responding to the call for research in this area. A discussion on the challenges associated with the use of the logic model in the context of the project concludes the article

Industry-academia collaborations in software engineering: An empirical analysis of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns in research projects

Research collaboration between industry and academia supports improvement and innovation in industry and helps to ensure industrial relevance in academic research. However, many researchers and practitioners believe that the level of joint industry-academia collaboration (IAC) in software engineering (SE) research is still relatively low, compared to the amount of activity in each of the two communities. The goal of the empirical study reported in this paper is to exploratory characterize the state of IAC with respect to a set of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns identified by a recent Systematic Literature Review study. To address the above goal, we gathered the opinions of researchers and practitioners w.r.t. their experiences in IAC projects. Our dataset includes 47 opinion data points related to a large set of projects conducted in 10 different countries. We aim to contribute to the body of evidence in the area of IAC, for the benefit of researchers and practitioners in conducting future successful IAC projects in SE. As an output, the study presents a set of empirical findings and evidence-based recommendations to increase the success of IAC projects.Supported by the National Research Fund, Luxembourg FNR/P10/03. Supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologia) within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio