Abstract

Since research partnerships in France are seen as a way to improve a firm’s competitive advantage, various public programs provide backing for them. Their principles seem to dovetail with the major axes of public research policies, which lay ever more emphasis on the need for collaboration between research and industry. Nonetheless, when we turn our attention toward the driving force in the behavior of stakeholders — researchers and research professors, in particular — we observe that powerful obstructions (mainly related to methods for evaluating personnel and allocating funds) keep them from working more closely with each other. The path around these obstacles is narrow.