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This paper presents a descriptive analysis of articles on university–industry relationships published between 1990 and 2000 in Industry and Higher Education. The results indicate that the case study methodology is the most common approach in such papers. In terms of the geographical context, most of the articles analyse developments in the UK, other parts of Europe, and the USA. The main subject categories analysed relate to successful experiences of interaction, ways of improving relationships between firms and universities, and appropriate public policies to enhance and encourage such relationships.

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of articles on university-industry relationships published between 1990 and 2000 in Industry and Higher Education. The results indicate that the case study methodology is the most common approach in such papers. In terms of the geographical context, most of the articles analyse developments in the UK, other parts of Europe, and the USA. The main subject categories analysed relate to successful experiences of interaction, ways of improving relationships between firms and universities, and appropriate public policies to enhance and encourage such relationships.

The Green Paper ‘Education for a Changing World’ makes far-reaching proposals on the future of Irish education. Sweeping changes are envisaged at the third level, where demand for places continues to rise sharply. A new unit cost funding mechanism has been introduced, ostensibly to achieve improved cost-efficiency and transparency in the disbursement of public funds. The efficacy of the system relies on the identification and proper assessment of the full range of university pursuits which extend beyond the central provision of formal education. This impacts on the university's ability effectively to use its comprehensive knowledge base to the benefit of industry and to participate in direct and indirect job creation, which is Ireland's most pressing problem. This, in turn, points to the need for suitable performance indicators to evaluate the overall contribution of universities. Consideration of these issues forms the central theme of this article.

This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) in Vietnam, marking the first systematic examination of practice-based studies within the country. Our review aims to identify key forms and factors influencing UIC implementation in Vietnam, recommending future directions and highlighting key facilitators. Following the PRISMA 2009 guidelines, we identified 256 research papers across four databases (Web of Science, ERIC, ProQuest, and Google Scholar), ultimately selecting 25 papers after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria and conducting duplicate removal. Thematic and inductive qualitative content analysis methods were employed to address the review question, revealing observed forms of UIC in Vietnam, including sponsorship, internships, licensing, knowledge transfer, and cooperative recruitment. Influencing factors encompass 10 elements. Our review identifies deficiencies in UIC implementation and suggests potential areas for future development. These findings pave the way for exploring innovative UIC strategies amidst industrialization and globalization.

This paper reflects on the systematic interconnections between creative workers and higher education institutions (HEIs). Despite the latter representing key intermediaries in creative industries’ development and creative workers’ career trajectories, the relationship between the two has rarely been framed in a relational and systemic framework. To do so, we chose the UK theatre sector as the case study and adopted a mixed methodology: UK Higher Education Statistical Agency quantitative data, which informed us on the employment state of workers 6 months after graduation, were combined with 21 semi-structured interviews with actors and actresses to understand the complexity of their relationship with HEIs. HEIs emerge as the initial door to paid jobs and professional networks for graduates and as employers for those in the later stages of their careers: the lack of formal ways to access jobs and the precarious working conditions for performers make hence HEIs a crucial force in shaping workers’ careers. Furthermore, HE remains throughout the career of theatre workers an important part of their portfolio, providing reliable income and more stable working patterns when needed. The paper concludes with the findings’ policy implications and the future role of HEIs in creative and cultural ecosystems.

This paper feeds into scholarly interest on place-based creative industrial development. It considers the creative-led economic development of two UK cities, Dundee and Chatham as emerging through a series of interdependent relationships between locally based higher education institutions (HEIs) and cultural and creative industries (CCIs) that are connected as part of a cultural and creative ecosystem (CCE). The discussion reflects on how interconnecting collaborations foster platforms and networks that support a sustainable CCE. Based on the research findings from qualitative investigations within each city, the paper applies the capability approach as a methodological tool to investigate how resources can be converted into tangible, accessible opportunities for local communities. The approach illustrates the need to focus on the resources that connect HEIs to CCIs within a geographical location for sustainable development. It concludes with a series of policy recommendations aimed at local governments to develop more integrated, ecological leadership models and policies to support sustainable CCEs.

This paper explores the use and impact of experiential learning initiatives in an entrepreneurial university. Data are taken from two sources: interviews with eight academic managers and six focus groups with learners. A mix of narrative structuring and thematic analysis is used to explore the design, delivery and assessment of experiential learning. The authors apply Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory as their theoretical lens. Experiential learning evokes a mixed reaction from academic managers and students. The paper identifies three key themes (design, delivery and outcomes) which help to capture the complex mix of direct and indirect effects that experiential learning initiatives can have at both individual and institutional levels. The authors conclude that embedding experiential learning is a valuable part of the development of an entrepreneurial university.

Notwithstanding a recent upsurge in interest in knowledge intermediaries and their roles in innovation support systems, we know little about the interplay between the activities of academia-driven intermediaries and their publicly financed counterparts. Building on a combination of principles derived from the resource-based theory and entrepreneurial ecosystems literature, this paper investigates the potentials of cooperation between different knowledge intermediaries. Therefore, the authors analyze the alignment of financial, knowledge, market and network resources in politically funded regional alliances between university-internal and university-external intermediaries by means of a qualitative approach. They find that, while knowledge intermediaries can benefit from access to additional ecosystem-specific resources, the urge to improve their own position within the ecosystem hampers the will to cooperate and can lead to non-performing resource alignments. The paper contributes to current scholarly discussions by suggesting and testing a theoretical foundation for analyzing the cooperative behavior of knowledge intermediaries in innovation support systems.

The literature on international student mobility (ISM) has recently proliferated across diverse fields, reflecting its multifaceted connections with higher education institutions, business, and industry. This paper reviews existing research to examine what is known on ISM in higher education to determine future directions. The paper provides an in-depth, systematic review of articles published over the past decade to obtain an overview of ISM’s antecedents, decisions, and outcomes. The theories, contexts, and methods employed in the paper to gain this understanding are also explained. Knowledge gaps are highlighted regarding international students’ diverse participation and their impacts on host countries. Finally, research directions are proposed to reveal ISM’s role and potential at the nexus of higher education and industry. This paper adds to existing research by adding insights into student mobility in higher education.

Reasons for the emerging mismatch between education and the labor market, its impact and the resolving mechanisms have been well studied. However, mismatch continues to be very problematic. Moreover, the new era of digitalization and artificial intelligence is accelerating this crisis. Acknowledging this tenet, we investigate further—whether a mismatch finds a match in the digitalized era. An individualist approach to answer each research question was considered so descriptive statistics, multinomial logistic regression and interviews are adopted under were implemented using the framework of both quantitative and qualitative methods. Findings suggest that the overall performance of the fully mismatched group (Science graduates) is comprehensively better compared to their counterpart (Business graduates). Digitalization has further generated a mismatch since business graduates are now increasingly irrelevant. This paper supplements the discourse on education and job market mismatch by using a distinct measurement strategy. We argue that digitalized skills are now the required competence to do jobs in any sector. Hence, all types of schools (business, science, social sciences) should equip their graduates with digitized skills in order to prevent them being replaced by science graduates.

This paper aims to identify the determinants of perceived future employability among students. A total of 396 university students from a leading university in Lebanon answered a questionnaire about perceived future employability, career ambition, career distress, university commitment, satisfaction with life and self-esteem. In line with the study hypotheses, the authors first establish the psychometric properties of the perceived future employability scale (PFES) in Lebanon and demonstrate the importance of satisfaction with life amid career ambition, career distress, university commitment and self-esteem. The results indicate a good fit to the data for the newly validated future perceived employability scale; moreover, a full mediation effect for satisfaction with life is confirmed. In addition, career ambition, university commitment, satisfaction with life and self-esteem predicted students’ PFES. The paper offers insights for students and university counselors on how to better foster perceived employability, and thus the capacity to adequately envision one’s career.

The fields of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have seen massive growth in recent years. Numerous degree programs have started to redesign their curricula to meet the high market demand for people qualified to fill related job positions. In this paper, the authors perform a content analysis of online job postings hosted on Indeed.comand provide a skill classification framework for AR/VR job positions. Furthermore, they present a ranking of the relevant skills for such positions. The paper contributes to the extant literature on curriculum design in degree programs by presenting the popular skills in the AR/VR domain.

The Covid-19 pandemic reduced the availability of work placements in commercial organisations for university students and potentially changed the nature of placements in the future. Similarly, charitable organisations who were already suffering budget restrictions have been financially affected by Covid-19 due to reduced revenue on trading activities, with financial sustainability predicted to be an ongoing issue. The opportunity, therefore, for charities to entice university students to volunteer to support their work, with the lure of developing their employability skills, seems irresistible at this time. The purpose of this paper is to examine the content of job advertisements for volunteer positions to determine the extent to which they specify transferable skills desired of the candidates, or state that they can be developed once employed in the post. The underlying assumption is that, to attract student volunteers, job advertisements will need to explicitly state the transferable skills resulting from the post, since students will be focused on developing employability skills through the volunteering activity to support their graduate careers. The paper offers originality by conducting a content analysis of volunteer jobs and assessing the specified criteria against recognised employability skills. It concludes by challenging charities, students and universities to embrace the opportunity for students to develop transferable skills through volunteering by modifying current practices.

This paper explores the nexus between University-Industry Collaborations (UIC) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region informed by a multiple-country-case study design. This study aims to explore the motives, opportunities and challenges, and propose effective practices in the MENA region context. Based on qualitative data retrieved through a series of 72 semi-structured interviews with university stakeholders (i.e., faculty, directors of corporate training, administrative staff, gatekeepers, company representatives and liaisons) conducted from March 2021 to September 2022. The sample was determined by a criterion sampling approach that enabled the development of cases from five countries in the MENA region (United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco) with each country sample comprising five university cases on average. This study was designed on a Multiple Case Study Research Design Approach (Yin, 2013) and this was supplemented by Template Analysis (a form of thematic analysis), and to incorporate the cross-national comparative dimension, Yasin and Hafeez (2022)approaches were adopted. The findings illustrate a wide range of motives, challenges, opportunities, and effective factors that are linked to varying objectives such as (1) the vision and ownership structures, (2) the stakeholder connections of universities (3) the brand reputation of the university provider (4) the perception and ranking of universities as well as (5) approaches undertaken by the University representative to negotiate the expectations of live projects. As a result, a contextualized framework is proposed in this study as the “five [essential] keys” for successful collaborations for the nexus between university and industry collaborations. The originality of this study is inherent in the qualitative cases and contextualized influences in non-westernized countries that are empirically under-explored, as well as the five keys framework that is useful from a theoretical and practical standpoint for academics, policymakers, and university leadership.

This paper analyses evidence of innovation in the joint work of a company, a university and government in creating a professional Master’s degree program in Biotechnology and Innovation Management at the Centro Universitário de Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It presents a new perspective by combining two fields of knowledge: biotechnology and innovation management. The conceptual scheme of Triple Helix spaces is still not well analyzed from an empirical viewpoint. This paper identifies the development of knowledge, consensus and innovation spaces through an examination of this professional Master’s course. A qualitative approach was used for the conducting of 20 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the Triple Helix: two directors of Embrapa, a Brazilian agriculture and livestock research company; the President of FAPEMIG, the Minas Gerais Research Support Foundation; nine teachers; and eight students. In addition, data were analyzed from the databases of CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel). The results show that the proximity between the knowledge areas of biotechnology and innovation management strengthened this new program, created only 7 years ago, which has already impacted socio-economic regional development.

In this paper the authors explore the implications for higher education of the disruptions caused by changes in the retail sector resulting from rapid developments in technology. Industry 4.0 technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, blockchain, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are increasingly evident in the retail sector. While predictions vary as to the extent of the disruption, retailers agree that embracing technology is now a necessity. The evidence in the paper is taken from a diverse sample of 60 senior managers across 24 retail companies in Ireland. The authors adopt a mixed-methods approach to data collection. They report that the skills required to perform in retail now and in the future will be a combination of human, digital and traditional skills. What emerges from the study is that advances in technology necessitate the provision of new hard skills, but importantly reinforce the necessity for soft skills so that the potential of the new technology can be fully understood and utilised. Helping retail employees upskill and future proof is a major challenge for higher education. Retailers need to proactively develop their employees by identifying clear progression pathways and promoting careers in retail.

The paper delineates three elements of an entrepreneurial university in practice through innovations demonstrating the academic entrepreneurial transition: the Novum Trivium, Professors of Practice (PoPs) and Link initiatives. The Novum Triviumprovides a model for the integration of entrepreneurship into a liberal arts curriculum, so that students learn how to put their knowledge to use and acquire a new language and new cultural understanding to interact globally. The PoPs initiative interlinks firm and university through shared dual roles in each setting, attracting back to the university on half-time basis scientific entrepreneurs from industry to serve as entrepreneurial role models. The Link projects build on ties between a leading entrepreneurial university (Stanford) and an aspiring one (Edinburgh), taking advantage of the fact that each university is already embedded in its region and could be linked to the other’s entrepreneurial culture. The paper demonstrates how industry and higher education are integrated by these initiatives, with the elements of each embedded in the other through shared resources, people and practices.

Although most students of entrepreneurship education find employment in established organizations after graduation, the employability of entrepreneurship education graduates remains largely overlooked in the education research literature. In this conceptual paper, the authors address this gap to motivate a future research agenda. The paper describes how entrepreneurship education may enable or impede the graduates’ entrance, development and transition in the labour market. To develop the theoretical arguments, the authors build on a processual conceptualization of employability. Seven propositions are presented to conceptually explore how competencies that are obtained through entrepreneurship education may influence the employability of graduates in a dynamic labour market. The propositions lay the groundwork for future studies on entrepreneurship education graduates’ employability and set a research agenda for how the employability of these graduates could be studied.

Channelized job search powered by perceived employability could help graduates to successfully launch a sustainable career and navigate the job market effectively. The paper develops novel ways to improve the job search process by detailing the interlinking mechanism between perceived employability and active job search. The authors also enquired about the intervening role played by preparatory job search and job search learning goal orientation. For this purpose, cross-sectional data of 317 management graduates in India were collected and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was conducted on the data using IBM Amos. The study found that enhanced perceived employability had a major impact on active job search behaviour. It was also found that it is through job search learning goal orientation and preparatory job search behaviour that perceived employability is associated with an active job search. The study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it links the theory of planned job search behaviour to employability research. Practically, it provides guidelines for universities and career counsellors on how to help students with their job searching. This is one of the first studies to look into the sequential mechanism through which employability perceptions impact active job searching.

Building on social identity theory, the paper sheds new light on knowledge creation and performance within teams by enhancing our understanding of the role played by shared skill-based identity on knowledge creation and team performance. Besides addressing team coordination issues, this study helps bridge the gap between shared skill-based knowledge and knowledge creation as well as team performance. Based on two field studies, the authors found that (1) a shared skill-based identity leads to higher behavioral integration; (2) having skill-based knowledge enhances shared skill-based identity; (3) behavioral integration mediates the shared skill-based identity–team performance relationship. Overall, our findings demonstrate that shared skill-based identity plays a crucial role in team performance and knowledge creation by enhancing behavioral integration. However, although shared skill-based knowledge positively impacts shared skill-based identity, it has no direct effect on knowledge creation and team performance. The authors hence demonstrate that the factors influencing team performance are complex and individuals need to feel integrated in teams to create knowledge. Furthermore, the study provides empirical evidence that may advance the study of team performance and inform managers on how to form effective teams. For instance, the authors suggest that, when forming teams, managers should consider how each potential member defines their identity.

The current entrepreneurial pedagogy focuses on enhancing students’ ability in discovering opportunities based on an understanding of users’ needs. This study challenges this dominant pedagogy by proposing a method to help students generate innovative ideas and create entrepreneurial opportunities by transforming the existing product’s meanings, or through a meanings design process, instead of only trying to understand users’ needs. The paper draws on social semiotic theories and theoretically proposes that, by transforming three product meanings (i.e., presentational, orientational and organizational), students are able to design a novel product and thus identify an entrepreneurial opportunity. A brief case study along with some students’ design projects are provided to illustrate how to use this method in teaching. This study is intended to provide entrepreneurship educators with a fresh tool to nurture students’ ability in identifying innovative opportunities and to immerse them in a more creative learning process while shaping their entrepreneurial mindset.

University–industry collaboration produces networks that may be capable of innovations, such as novel products and services. The collaboration projects also need to benefit student learning, yet teachers have little clarity with regard to innovation competence development. Individual innovation competence is a set of personal characteristics, knowledge, skills and attitudes that are connected to create concretised and implemented novelties via collaboration in complex innovation processes. The paper reports on the findings from the development and validation of an individual innovation competence assessment tool. The aim is to determine which individual innovation competences are significant in university–industry collaboration and which of these competences are sensitive to educational interventions. The study used a three-phase method involving development of the questionnaire items, validation in teacher and student panels, and a pilot pre- and post-survey study. All seven domains of individual innovation competences were significant and sensitive to educational intervention (a multidisciplinary innovation project conducted with industry). The most responsive competence domains regarding change were concretisation and implementation planning skills, and project management skills. The paper concludes with application opportunities for the tool and recommendations for further research.

Regional and institutional contexts have been acknowledged as important to the design of entrepreneurship education (EE), yet the importance of place for entrepreneurship has so far received less attention. There is still much work to do in connecting students to places and engaging them in understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship, local communities and local economies within the EE curriculum. Taking inspiration from the notions of place-based and place-conscious learning, the paper proposes a framework for place-based EE and considers challenges for integrating place-based approaches into the EE curriculum. A case study of place-based EE at a university business school is then used to illustrate how the framework can be used to review existing curricula, as well as to reveal how an institution’s context might both facilitate and constrain opportunities for place-based learning. The paper provides a contribution by making more visible the important yet often invisible role of place in EE, while being mindful of the needs, resources and educational aims of regions and institutions.

Spin-off companies are generally considered a promising vehicle for developing academic knowledge into products that are ready for the market. In this paper the authors explore under what circumstances spin-off companies can serve as a source of knowledge for the research organization from which they originate. The paper brings together literature from different academic fields to construct an analytical framework for investigating knowledge feedback mechanisms between spin-off companies and their parent research organizations. The authors illustrate the application of this framework in six case studies of parent–spin-off couples in the water technology sector. These case studies show that the interaction with spin-off companies can yield important cognitive benefits for the academic research process, such as an improvement of the research agenda and new insights about the practical operation of theoretical models and technologies. These benefits were facilitated mainly by staff exchange, collaborative research and personal contacts.