Collaboration Between Science and Industry: Future Research Directions for Big Science Organizations

Abstract

Over the last few decades, science-industry collaboration has in large part been studied through the lens of universities, as key sources for industrial innovation. Surprisingly, relatively little attention has been paid to Big Science Organizations (BSOs), also known as large scale research infrastructures, despite them playing a great role in science, technology and innovation policy. Research has been conducted on both actors and their collaborations with industry, resulting in two streams of research. While the stream on University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) is rather established in quantity and quality, Big Science-Industry Collaboration (BSIC) research is yet an under-developed area, and there is a clear imbalance in the literature between the two streams. However, attention to BSOs is gaining traction, and as such, deciphering what can be learned and applied from UIC and what can be further studied in BSIC can be conducive. The objective of this work is thus to present a comparison of these two streams, with the aim of identifying some of the core differences between them, as well as to produce an agenda for future BSIC research. A review of UIC literature reviews is compiled, along with a systematic review of the BSIC literature to date. The results of this study have demonstrated many similarities between the two streams of research, where both streams have covered the same themes, and in most part, the same topics. Differences have arisen in subtle ways, such as through definitions of concepts, organizational perspectives, or differences in the temporal periods of collaboration studied. Various areas are highlighted for future research.