A Design-Driven Approach to Facilitate University-SME Cooperation

Kruse, Paul

Abstract

Cooperation between universities and businesses is essential for innovation, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The critical role of University-Business Cooperation (UBC) in producing and disseminating new knowledge is recognised by governments, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners.  UBC has gathered significant attention and funding, exemplified by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program. However, there is a notable research gap regarding the formation of UBC, especially for  SMEs. To address this gap, this research-in-progress applied the first two steps of the Design Science  Research approach to give an overview of UBC formation discussed in this context by governments, businesses, and universities, thus, presenting a starting point for the overall objective to design and develop an UBC platform. The preliminary results depict relevant context factors for the formation of UBC and derive three requirements for a UBC platform.