University and industry collaboration: towards a successful and sustainable partnership

As Malaysia is moving towards advancement of science and technology, forging strong collaboration between the university and the industry is inevitable. In fact, there are increasing pressure felt by the industries to at least allowed higher learning institutions to handle some aspects of training and development. This is because, the costs of operating have escalated and companies can no longer be self sufficient. Literatures showed that previous studies have begun to uncover the reasons for as well as the types of collaboration pursued. However, these studies offer limited explanations on some pertinent aspects of the university and industry collaborations. Drawing on a survey of workshop participants at the School of Physics Universiti Sains Malaysia, the current study tries to explain factors that determine successful collaborations, exploring the various aspects that significantly influenced those initiatives. In addition, the study also seeks to indentify reasons that will ensure sustainable collaborations between the both sides. Implications of the findings will be used to aim at facilitating greater university and industry collaborations in the future. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Huseyin Uzunboylu.