Exploring the Barriers Affecting Malaysian University Symbiosis Program in University-Industry Commercialization

Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers that could affect the University Symbiosis Program. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Research synthesis technique and pearl growing technique are used to identify the barriers relevant to university-industry collaborative effort. Findings: Past studies indicated that there is a fuzzy relationship affecting university-industry collaborative effort and their commercialized outcome. Though there exist factors that could trigger university-industry commercialization, nevertheless the same factors have shown to produce different effect on the said collaborative result. Hence, there exist a suspected variable that could explain the observed fuzzy relationship between the university-industry collaborative effort and university-industry commercialization outcome. With this in mind, the University Symbiosis Program i.e., a type of university-industry collaborative effort that requires university researchers and technopreneurs to work hand-in-hand from the inception of an innovation to the final market was seen as the possible variable to the above exhortation. Based on the review of previous findings on barriers relevant to university-industry collaborative effort, this paper proposed a conceptual framework that describes the relationships between the barriers affecting university-industry collaborative effort, the University Symbiosis Program, and the final commercialized outcome. Barriers include competency, dedication, management of government funding, culture, and expectation were found to be relevant. Application/Improvements: This paper is expected to contribute to the body of knowledge on university-industry collaborative effort via the University Symbiosis Program.