This assignment involved researching on the relationships between institutions of higher learning and Industry. The goal was to identify the principal forms of interaction (formal and informal) between Universities and firms and analysing their effectiveness. The research tracks how interactions have involved through the 1990s and how they have been affected by changing policies and other environmental factors.
Some of the interactions explored included training; the intermediation of technology; extension services; licensing offices in universities, contract research; start-ups by students and staff; and consulting, etc. The likelihood of engaging in such activities among different university departments (or faculties from different disciplines) was also explored. Results are based on in-depth interviews with key participants from the universities, firms and the public agencies and the information, quantitative and qualitative, contained in secondary sources.
The research suggests some concrete policies for the firms, university administrators, and governments (national and sub-national) to strengthen help university-industry linkages in the interests of achieving specified outcomes, which would promote local development.
- Desk research
- Helping the World bank to modify the survey instruments and make them suitable for the local environment
- High-level stakeholder consultation and interview with contacts from different government agencies, business development services, business groups, higher education institutions, etc.
- A survey of 40 businesses was undertaken this study. Some were derived from contacts within the universities and others selected because they did not have any links with universities
- In-depth case-studies of four selected businesses, two of which had linkage with Universities and two of which had none
- Produced a country report based on the analysis of all the collected data
