This UIS interface schema relates to the effective and efficient establishment and operation of permanent industry innovation labs within universities (and vice versa) and their interaction with other geographically distributed labs / teams or even with other RTOs and/or universities. The characteristic situation is that staff from both organisations are working on the same research project simultaneously and in a coordinated manner, if aligned correctly.
Benefits from effectively setting up such co-located teams come from the close collaboration through symbiosis of industry and academia. That can help to increase the knowledge transfer, the innovativeness and sophistication of the solutions. Finally, maximising the alignment of interests can help the market applicability of research.
Challenges in such schemas can be seen in the alignment of research priorities and distribution of responsibilities. The effective staffing of such distributed R&D projects can also be challenging (different departments, roles, team-sizes, capabilities, etc. within the research collaboration network). Critical point can also be the efficiency of communication within such remote collaborative networks; modern ICT tools and processes can play a role in this respect.
