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University‐workplace partnerships are becoming increasingly important as the demands for authentic learning are growing. Partnership management ensures availability of authentic learning environments, joint‐learning tasks, and knowledge‐producing commissions for the students. Universities, however, can have difficulties in managing these crucial partnerships. This paper's purpose is to investigate the problems and to suggest a solution.

The approach is based on a case study of Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland.

In the case study, the program is run by business students, who as a part of their education, learn important skills in managing “customers” and projects. This results in improved learning for the students as they not only gain first hand experience in customer relationship management, but also deeper partnerships as the relationships evolve over time. Partnerships are centrally managed and available to all participants. This program is non‐exclusive: it does not assume or require participation from the educators. If an educator wishes to keep his/her own workplace contacts private, this is possible.

The results stem from a case study. Even though good results are reported in the case, every organization is different and using a similar approach is not guaranteed to work.

The paper suggests a way for universities to deepen partnerships, overcoming typical hurdles.

The non‐exclusive approach to partnership management described in the paper is original and will benefit universities in their quest for improving partnerships. The authors believe that the use of students as the task force of the program to this extent is a novel idea and benefits the local workplaces (new knowledge) as well as students (authentic learning).

The purpose of this study is to examine how a university and public school partnership was structured regarding the partners' contribution and leadership roles within the partnership.

Data were collected over a four‐year period that involved faculty and graduate students (K‐12 fellows), with students and teachers in selected public schools in Rhode Island and a regional university. The data were analyzed by examining mutuality characteristics, the level of partner involvement, as well as the influence of leadership on the project's success.

Over time, it was clear that leadership emerged at the partner level, where skills and strategies were developed to support partnership goals.

This research presents the variance experienced by partners as to their level of involvement and the importance leadership played as a means of guiding the partnership through several stages of maturation, resulting in an enduring relationship among partners. Leadership and partnerships at school and university level can learn from the lessons found in this study and apply them to their own environments.

This study investigated a teacher leadership program created by a partnership between a large US urban district, their teachers’ union and a university. We were part of an action-research partnership that examined the program’s implementation.

We employed a hermeneutic phenomenology methodology and mixed-method data collection methods and analysis strategies to understand the experiences of program participants. Data included interviews with program participants, union leaders and district administrators along with an analysis of projects that participants created during the program.

Teacher leadership programs were legitimized through diverse stakeholder collaboration, and involvement of a university partner was viewed as a value-add for teachers. Formalized teacher leadership programs professionalize teachers through expanding professional networks, developing leadership skills and lifting teachers’ voices. When teacher leader work is directed towards school improvement, teachers’ unique perspectives yield varied problems of practice and goals in ways that help schools address these problems.

This study has implications for districts seeking to create teacher leadership opportunities and for districts and universities seeking to partner for in-service professional learning opportunities.

This study underscores the role effective district-union-university partnerships can play in fostering pipelines for teacher leader development, which can better position school improvement efforts to be sustained over time.

This study aims to analyze the experiences of a closed cohort of aspiring leaders and connects the university and school district partnership relationship to building the leadership capacity of the cohort. This study builds on previous literature in district-university partnerships and leadership preparation. Powerful learning experiences (PLEs) and interpersonal-intrapersonal leadership development models serve as frames to examine how aspects of successful leadership preparation programs were present.

This qualitative study was conducted with a team of researchers from the university and school district and relies on data from semi-structured interviews with students from the closed cohort.

Researchers identified three major themes of aspiring leaders' preparation experience: confidence building, reflection and mindset change.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on PLEs by illustrating how this type of partnership creates opportunities for powerful learning experiences for aspiring school leaders.

The study conceptualises universities as “cities of flows” to examine the East-West University Partnership (EWUP) in China, which is a pioneering initiative of cross-regional university collaboration linking over 220 institutions across China since 2001. The study explores the strategic enhancement of connective and collaborative capacity of universities to facilitate diverse flows of talent, knowledge and other resources within the broader context of China's sustainable development in higher education.

The study employs a qualitative single-case study design to investigate the EWUP within its real-life context using participant observation and documentary research. As an analogical inquiry, the study merges the insider and outsider perspectives of the researchers to identify patterns between theoretical constructs and empirical evidence.

The EWUP as a policy entrepreneurship has significantly contributes to coordinated, inclusive and sustainable development. Its spatial dynamics consists of structural, temporal and collaborative dynamics. They are characterised by centrality, connectivity and adaptability which are generated through the interplay among the nodes, linkages and fields of influence within the EWUP network. These dynamics showcase EWUP as a novel approach to managing long-term university partnerships between more and less developed regions.

The study reimagines universities and higher education systems through vivid analogies of cities and transportation networks and elucidates connectivity as a pivotal dimension of sustainability. It advocates for reexamining spatial theories in higher education, deepens insights into the dynamics of cross-regional university partnerships in coordinating educational and territorial development, and enriches discussions on Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD).

The purpose of this paper is to explore why corporations are forming corporate education partnerships with universities and the role of corporate education programmes.

The paper presents the findings from quantitative research involving 79 senior managers from North America, the UK, and Australia responsible for the management of their university‐corporate education partnerships.

The research finds that the primary reason for establishing university‐corporate education partnerships is to provide a recognised university award programme to complement an organisation's in‐house education programmes. Also, by aligning with a university an organisation is able to add strength and credibility to its in‐house corporate education programmes.

The research provides an insight into the growing role of university‐corporate education partnerships and helps to quantify some emerging aspects of these partnerships.

The purpose of this paper is to review the answers to the question posed in the introduction to the themed issue: how can effective university‐industry partnerships be developed?

The paper consolidates the findings of various studies featuring in this theme issue on effective university‐industry partnerships. It addresses the aspects which contribute to effective partnerships and also challenges the issues around such partnerships.

The paper discusses the range of best practices for building effective university‐industry partnerships.

There are lessons for industry, universities and policy makers.

The paper provides multiple perspectives on university‐industry partnerships from various geographies.

The aim of this paper is to present a model of a university–industry partnership in gaming education and research. It analyzes the interactions and knowledge transfer between the two parties in Macao.

This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach to share experiences of a university based in Macao as a single case to present its informal partnership with the industry in the area of gaming education and research.

This paper has shown that the partnership has provided clear benefits to both parties and the government is an influential power that can enhance collaboration. Although the informal partnership involves considerable time and efforts, it is flexible in comparison to the formal approach. Despite this, the knowledge transfer tends to focus on general issues to avoid being appropriated by competitors.

This demonstrates how a public university in Macao has achieved an informal industry–university partnership, which requires the commitment and understanding of both parties for the bi-directional exchange of knowledge. Such knowledge needs to be value-enhancing for the industry to keep the partnership grow and prosper.

This study puts forward an original approach to an informal industry–university partnership in the area of gaming education and research.

The aim of this paper is to show how a university‐industry partnership can be used in two key ways. First, to contribute to academia through the development of new research methodology and improved understanding of the subject area (total quality management (TQM)). Second, to add to organisational learning by developing critical reflection and reflexivity in employees and managers involved in the partnership and the development of TQM in the organisation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper critiques the partnership between the author's university and a large utility organisation over a four‐year period. The development of academic and organisational learning over this period is discussed, with particular emphasis on the need for developing appropriate research methodologies in this type of environment. Findings – The paper has shown that partnerships between universities and organisations often experience difficulties due to apparently differing and incommensurate desired outcomes. Any partnership activity must involve deep learning transfer and practitioner reflection and reflexivity as opposed to training. The overall method of working, which included the research methodology, was that of critical action learning. The emphasis on criticality involving this cycling process enabled practitioners to critically reflect and to carry out reflexive change actions. This approach ensured that grounded TQM models were produced which represented the complexity and dynamics of TQM implementation within the organisation. Once again, the practitioner's reflection and reflexivity added to the richness of the findings and developments. Overall, the partnership produced a range of successful outcomes.

Overall, the partnership produced a range of successful outcomes for the organisation and the university over the four‐year period. However, it should be noted that these methods of working and research methodologies for the partnership involve considerable time in comparison to more conventional approaches. Furthermore, the partnership required the commitment and understanding of the organisation in relation to long‐term learning transfer Originality/value – This study puts forward an original approach to university‐industry partnership and indeed highlights some of the positive aspects of the approach for both the university and the industry partner.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate and explore the five year partnership between University College London (UCL) and Nazarbayev University (NU) in Astana, Kazakhstan. Now that the partnership has ended, there are many valuable lessons that have been learned. This chapter will report on interviews with key members of staff from both UCL and NU revealing their reflections about what went well, the most important lessons that have been learned. The goal of the study is to explore the expertise and experiences of those involved in the UCL/NU partnership in order to provide a record and contribute to the scholarly body of work on Higher Education partnerships. Critical case sampling (purposeful sampling) was employed to select staff members from UCL and NU who were involved in key roles in the establishment and running of the foundation program. It was necessary to include only those staff who had both a key role, and were involved throughout the entirety of the project. Subsequently a small sample of four participants representing both UCL and NU were involved in semi structured interviews. In order to ensure confidentiality, the initials of these individuals have been changed. The interviews revealed a series of key recommendations when entering into transnational higher education partnerships. These are the importance of cultural understanding, patience and flexibility.