Reasons and background in the university-company relationship

The approximation of universities with companies can be seen as another opportunity to bring the knowledge generated in the academic environment to society. By transforming this knowledge into technologies incorporated in goods and services to be introduced to the market by the companies, the benefits generated by the results of academic research will also be accessed by the society that consumes these goods and services. In this second article that addresses the university-company relationship, we will talk a little about the motivations and antecedents usually found in this relation.

When companies approach universities, technology opportunities can be anticipated. In some cases, the approximation of the companies with the universities is motivated by the geographic location, which is justified by the costs of shifting researchers to follow up the work, or sending inputs to the experiments in laboratories. However, the location of the partner university loses its relevance when it comes to a very specific competence in which a university is a reference. Even so, companies begin their search for a university or research center that has the complementary skills they need near one of their units, with the support of the researchers' network of relationships that strengthens as the relationship continues.

Researchers at the academy have been more interested in approaching companies to apply their inventions, turning them into innovations, rather than focusing only on publishing their research without generating financial returns. For companies, the increase in contracts signed with universities is due in large part to the increased need to include external sources in their R & D activities, as well as greater reliance on these sources.

However, it is not common to see the inventions generated in the university being licensed in their early stages of development, which is justified by the search for more immediate results of the companies. Still, it has been noted that there is also increased interest in researchers continuing to participate in the process of improving results, even after the technology has been licensed. This is a point of great relevance for the continuity of partnerships between universities and companies, because the bonds are strengthened and new opportunities can arise.

The motivation of firms to seek universities has increased as the incentives and policies formulated by the government for this purpose increase. As a consequence, there is a structural reformulation of R & D activities. Thus, the amplitude of the connections that occur between companies and universities is amplified and makes more effective the process of using the knowledge generated in the academy in the market. In Brazil, specifically when it comes to companies in the area of ​​information technology and communication, we see that the approximation with universities occurs to enjoy the benefits provided by the Information Technology Law (Law 8.248 / 91). These companies strengthen their technological capacity thanks to the partnerships they make and consolidate over time with universities or research institutes.

Rarely, the establishment of a university-company relationship is the result of a search in which the company has complete information and has a wide scope of options. As stated in the first article of this series, generally these relationships are established from a social network that is established between researchers or from past partnerships that have existed. Thus, there is a phase prior to establishing the collaborative relationship between

university and company, in which the members of the organization seek to become involved with the scientific community and to strengthen the relationship with researchers from universities and research centers.

Other reasons that lead companies to approach universities are access to technological development, administrative support in their innovation projects, training, training and retraining of their personnel. Universities, in turn, seek companies to have a continuous updating of their faculty, experimentation and putting into practice the knowledge generated and the possibility of more direct placement of their students in the productive sector.

In summary, we can say that the search for universities to obtain new technologies is also motivated by the specific needs of companies. As specific needs lead to the search for specific competencies, universities are also pre-selected by companies based on this criterion, that is, they must have the competences complementary to the internal competencies of the company that together meet their needs. In order to identify potential partner universities, companies often obtain information from researchers they are already accustomed to relating to who can indicate the best options from their networks of relationships.

It is noted that the motivation of both parties tends to increase as cases of success occur and there is a perception that bureaucratic barriers diminish. Therefore, I venture to say that we will have more and more companies and universities working together towards innovation as an effective means to increase the competitiveness of companies and strengthen the application of scientific knowledge. Therefore, success stories need to be shared and experiences must be shared so that the university-business relationship is improved and are reasons for others to use this path as part of the innovation strategy.