This study applies a systematic literature review and qualitative content analysis to identify and synthesize key factors that enable collaborative innovation between industry and universities. Using a keyword search in the Web of Science database, the review identified 40 papers that were frequently cited on the topic. Results were summarized into seven main themes or central factors stimulating collaborative innovation: resources, university organization, boundary-spanning functions, collaborative experience, culture, status centrality and environmental context. This article elaborates on these ‘enabling factors’ and uses them to summarize a number of results from the reviewed studies regarding facilitators of collaborative innovation. The discussion focuses on how these factors relate and the extent to which they are amenable to policy intervention.

This article focuses on how academic and industrial leaders view central aspects of the initiation, collaboration process, and the outcomes in government-funded R&D projects. In much previous work on university-industry collaborations (UICs), universities or researchers and/or firms have been studied without any direct reference to the other party, thus neglecting the fact that the motivations, perceptions, and actions involved in UICs are twosided at least. In contrast, this study builds on interviews with academic-industry project leader pairs to identify how both sides perceive the initiation, interaction, conditions, and outcomes of the collaborative project. While there is unexpected overlap in both parties' perceptions of goals and utilities of the collaboration, there is also a clear tendency for academics to stress the less tangible or distant factors (e.g., 'a culture', 'priorities', or general university support), while industry actors emphasize more tangible operative factors (e.g., collaborative networks, timing issues, having project owners and conflict resolution procedures). This might illustrate different cultural or professional mores as well as different notions of what types of efficiencies to seek collaborative R&D in general.

We examine trends in innovation output for two highly ranked innovative countries: Finland and Sweden (1970-2013). Our novel dataset, collected using the LBIO (literature-based innovation output) method, suggests that the innovation trends are positive for both countries, despite an extended downturn in the 1980s. The findings cast some doubt on the proposition that the current stagnation of many developed countries is due to a lack of innovation and investment opportunities. Our data show that Finland catches up to, and passes, Sweden in innovation output in the 1990s. In per capita terms, Finland stays ahead throughout the period. We find that the strong Finnish performance is largely driven by innovation increase in just a handfull of sectors, but is not restricted to few companies. Both countries saw a rise in innovation during the dot-com era and the structural changes that followed. Since 2000 however, Sweden has outperformed Finland in terms of total innovations, especially in machinery and ICT, while the Finnish rate of innovation has stabilised. We suggest that these patterns may be explained by different paths of industrial renewal.

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