Industry-academia research collaboration and knowledge co-creation: Patterns and anti-patterns

TL;DR

This paper analyzes 14 years of industry-academia collaboration in software engineering, identifying successful patterns and common anti-patterns to improve future research-practice partnerships.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive set of 14 patterns and 14 anti-patterns for effective industry-academia collaboration in software engineering.

Findings

14 patterns for successful collaboration

14 anti-patterns to avoid in collaborations

Qualitative analysis of long-term industry-academia projects

Abstract

Increasing the impact of software engineering research in the software industry and the society at large has long been a concern of high priority for the software engineering community. The problem of two cultures, research conducted in a vacuum (disconnected from the real world), or misaligned time horizons are just some of the many complex challenges standing in the way of successful industry-academia collaborations. This paper reports on the experience of research collaboration and knowledge co-creation between industry and academia in software engineering as a way to bridge the research-practice collaboration gap. Our experience spans 14 years of collaboration between researchers in software engineering and the European and Norwegian software and IT industry. Using the participant observation and interview methods we have collected and afterwards analyzed an extensive record of qualitative data. Drawing upon the findings made and the experience gained, we provide a set of 14 patterns and 14 anti-patterns for industry-academia collaborations, aimed to support other researchers and practitioners in establishing and running research collaboration projects in software engineering.