2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Background
In established industry-university relationships, industries often exhibit high innovation capabilities, while universities primarily engage in early-stage basic research and technology transfer. However, most businesses in China are unable to adopt and use cutting-edge technology, then there is an urgent need for increased industry-university collaboration due to the notable technical gap between academia and the industry. Research universities, which are essential to the creation of knowledge and the development of talent, are under increasing external pressure to expand their industry outreach to increase key industrial competitiveness. Embedding industrial outreach into organizational structures and practices has become a key strategy for research universities to fulfill their third mission.

Purpose
With the shift in national innovation strategies and industrial policies, university industrial outreach is no longer limited to technology transfer. It now also includes talent cultivation for industry and the development of open innovation platforms. This study centers around one key question: How do research universities engage in industrial outreach in this new era? Focusing on three types of university industrial outreach institutions—open innovation laboratories, industry-university research centers, and joint R&D centers—this study explores the characteristics of their industrial outreach activities and the management and operational mechanisms behind them.

Research Design
Using a multi-case analysis methodology, this study chooses six Chinese university industrial outreach organizations. The obtained materials from face-to-face interviews and official documents were coded and subjected to content analysis. The study seeks to provide an overview of the various forms of university industrial outreach institutions' organizational structures, outreach activity characteristics, operational methods, and supporting motivational factors.

Findings
The research findings suggest that research universities in China are actively engaged in building interfaces between academia and industry. These interfaces include open innovation laboratories, industry-university research centers, and joint university-enterprise R&D institutions. To be more specific, open innovation laboratory serves as a hub for the construction of the entire industrial chain, focusing on outreach activities including business incubation, technology transfer, entrepreneurial talent training, while the industry-university research center is built for accelerating the development of local industrial clusters through joint construction of production lines, proof of concept, and professional skills training. University-enterprise R&D institutions emphasize cutting-edge technology innovation within enterprises, helping companies overcome long-term and pressing technological challenges with a focus on collaborative research projects.

Research implications
The establishment of university industrial outreach institutions requires careful consideration of factors such as the characteristics of STEM disciplines, the needs of co-building stakeholders, corporate absorptive capacity, outreach goals, and policy support. Open innovation laboratories are usually driven by user demand. These institutions are able to facilitate rapid shifts all through the industrial value chain and react swiftly to market needs. In contrast, industry-university research centers tend to focus on local economic development. By encouraging technology sharing through open platforms, these centers can increase regional technical competitiveness, but they also require substantial policy support from local governments. Joint university-enterprise R&D centers focus primarily on the specific needs of individual companies and emphasize breakthrough innovations at the frontier. They leverage the combined strengths of universities and enterprises to help businesses achieve a leading position in global markets.