Emerging Research and Trends

This chapter serves as a review of the emerging research related to academy-business partnerships by examining dissertations, masters theses, and some reports in the past few decades. Given that most research from dissertations is not published in scholarly journals nor books, this review provides insight into the exploration of relevant topics. An attempt has been made to cluster prior work into related groupings so that a portrait of existing research can emerge. The sparse studies included in this review yielded thin clusters of research on model development, fiscal adaptations, and idiosyncratic case studies. The largest grouping of somewhat fragmented research is clustered around examinations of individuals within the partnerships and partnership-making; this latter grouping explores the various actors from the business or academy sides of such partnerships. A summary of a NACRO survey is also included to provide research-based perspectives of actual academy-business partnerships.