Cooperation between Hungarian universities and business remains underdeveloped

A European study on university-business cooperation in 33 countries for the European Commission shows that cooperation in Hungary is below the European average but academics, as well as businesses, plan to increase their collaborative activities in the future.

Over 60% of Hungarian academics are not engaged in university-business cooperation (UBC) at all.

They rarely commercialise their research and development (R&D) results or participate in entrepreneurship activities for students. Similarly, businesses barely support academics and students who want to create their own business. Hungarian academics share few resources with businesses and the participation in each other’s governance systems is low. This low level of UBC is likely to be hindering student employability in Hungary, hindering innovation efforts in Hungarian companies as well as the ability of university research to impact society.

Barriers to collaboration are perceived to be higher than in other European countries, according to 662 Hungarian representatives from academia and business.

The lack of university and government funding, bureaucracy and lack of time are among the main barriers for academics. Hungarian businesses are also hindered by the lack of government funding along with differing motivations between university and business and the university’s focus on producing scientific outcomes instead of more practical ones.

However, those Hungarian academics and business people who collaborate are generally satisfied with their cooperative activities. Cooperation occurs more often in education and research. The most common activities are student internships in companies, joint R&D and academics acting as consultants for business.

The potential to access better qualified gradates as well as technologies and knowledge is what drives Hungarian businesses to collaborate, whereas academics who cooperate are principally driven by the possibility to obtain financial resources and improve their research.

Hungarian academics undertake most of their cooperation with large businesses or small/micro-sized companies at a regional or national level and they lack cooperation with business internationally. Nonetheless, 53% of the cooperating businesses engage with international universities.

Photo by Alpár Kató – Daily News Hungary