Cooperative Research and Development: The Industry—University—Government Relationship

We must all hang together or surely we will all hang separately. Benjamin Franklin The significant apathy that characterized relationships between indus- try and universities and the adversarial nature of relationships between industry and government have both faded rapidly in the 1980s as the realities of global competition have surfaced in the United States. Both industry and government leaders articulate a number of constructs for regaining our competitiveness in world markets. One of the more fre- quent strategies prescribed in this new competitiveness era is cooperation. Different individuals or groups may espouse different definitions, inter- pretations, or areas of emphasis, but the overall importance of this concept is substantial. Although examples of cooperative research have existed for several decades, the number and variety of relationships have expanded rapidly in the 1980s as corporations, universities, and governments have embraced this strategy. Joint ventures involving two or three firms increased from under 200 per year in the 1970s to over 400 per year by the mid-1980s. Multiple-firm cooperative arrangements are a more recent phenomenon, made possible by the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984. By mid- 1988,81 of these industry-level consortia had formed under the provisions of the 1984 Act. The rapid growth in cooperative research and development (R&D) is primarily a response to the pressures of international competition. As a corporate strategy, cooperative R&D meets short-term needs for assets to implement new approaches for coping with intensifying competition.

Table of Contents:
I. The Role Players.- 1. A Typology of Industry—Government Laboratory Cooperative Research: Implications for Government Laboratory Policies and Competitiveness.- 2. Financing Industry—Government Cooperation in Industrial Research.- 3. University—Industry Relations: A Review of Major Issues.- II. National Strategies.- 4. Historical and Economic Perspectives of the National Cooperative Research Act.- 5. Technology Policy and Collaborative Research in Europe.- 6. Joint R&D and Industrial Policy in Japan.- 7. Cooperative Research and International Rivalry.- III. Impacts on Industrial Strategies.- 8. Collaborative Research and High-Temperature Superconductivity.- 9. Cooperative Research in the Automobile Industry: A Multinational Perspective.- 10. Coalitions, Cooperative Research, and Technology Development in the Globalization of the Semiconductory Industry.- About the Authors.