Facilitating University–Industry Interaction by Visually Showcasing Researcher Profiles Via Metadata

Abstract

: University–industry interaction (UII) has grown significantly over the past two decades. Yet, contacting uni- versities to establish collaboration continues to be perceived as challenging by the industry. This paper studies the challenges associated with UII for analysing how metadata, taxonomies and visualizations in research information management systems (RIMS) may support UII for large enterprises. The first step was a systematic literature review conducted to understand the challenges associated with UII. The second step was interviews with R&D managers from three large enterprises to extend our knowledge about this industry group. The results showed that the primary channel for establishing UII was through personal connections. The informants saw the RIMS as an important tool for browsing research literature and exploring research groups to gain insights into research topics and individual researchers. In terms of metadata, the findings showed that multi-disciplinarity and high-level granularity were important aspects. Furthermore, the visuali-sation of relationships and description of international collaborations was perceived a useful indicator of re- searchers’ overall quality and impact. Similarly, metadata describing job titles, departments, and citations was central for judging the credibility of experts. An interesting finding was that enterprise managers found it difficult to develop personal relationships with relevant academic experts. Future studies may benefit from interviews with HR management professionals exploring how to support recruitment by using metadata and taxonomies.