Building a Distributed Web-Based Research and Innovation Ecosystem for University-Industry Partnership

Abstract

This research study aimed at developing a distributed system of web-based collaboration that would create a research and innovation ecosystem for university-industry partnership. Based on in-depth literature review, the focus-group approach to qualitative research was conducted with key stakeholders in university-industry partnership coming together to understand the research problem and system requirements. The requirements gathered at the project initiation stage guided the system design and implementation of a distributed collaborative research and innovation system that runs on three separately located servers: two for two different universities and one for all industry players. The system developed was modeled to describe how it works and to demonstrate how it would meet the identified functional requirements. Recommendations were given to guide further research and development that would improve the impact of this research study.