Barriers to university-industry collaboration in an academic university department in London, United Kingdom

Abstract

Purpose University-industry collaboration yields numerous advantages resulting in potential benefits in funding research and innovation. Despite the numerous benefits, there are various perceived disadvantages of such collaboration especially in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry in prominent academic institutes in London, UK. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes of the academics and clinicians in an academic university department towards industry collaboration. Design/methodology/approach Two methods were applied, quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative method used an online questionnaire of four-point Likert-Scale, the link of which was emailed to 80 members of the department with a response rate of 32%. The qualitative method included a one-to-one interview with eight researchers from the department to garner in-depth information on the attitude of researchers in child and adolescent psychiatry towards industry collaboration. Findings The online questionnaire was completed by 26 researchers, the vast majority perceived industry as biased to favour their product and as having a bad or mixed reputation. One-on-one interviews with eight prominent researchers allowed us to share their perception and attitude towards industry collaboration, although the researchers believe that availability of funding was the major advantage of working in collaboration with industry, many did not know how to access such grants and some raised concerns about industry’s record of presenting partial results. Research limitations/implications Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. Practical implications This paper will shed light on how prominent researchers perceive collaboration with industry. Originality/value Although researchers are very reluctant to collaborate with industry because of its public opinion and sometimes unethical and lack of integrity among the industry, with rigorous ethical guidelines and policies, the pharmaceutical industry can be a potential and significant source of funding of high-quality research and innovation.