Measuring what matters: The real impact of university–industry engagement

Most universities measure their industry partnerships through patents, spin-offs and commercial revenue. Yet these indicators capture only a fraction of what engagement can produce. A UIIN Insights Brief, authored by Balzhan Orazbayeva and Arno Meerman of UIIN, Todd Davey of IMT-BS, and Alep Blancas of ICKR,  introduces a framework for understanding university-industry engagement more comprehensively, looking beyond what is easiest to count to consider who benefits, what forms of value are created, and how those results can be evidenced.

Beyond what is easiest to measure

Understanding impact starts with being able to capture it. If universities want to manage and strengthen their engagement with industry, they need to understand what that engagement produces and how those results develop over time.

Yet measurement often concentrates on the most visible and readily quantifiable results: patents, start-ups, commercial revenues or numbers of collaborations. These indicators matter, but they represent only part of the picture. Engagement can also strengthen skills, create new knowledge, build relationships and networks, change organisational practices, improve curricula, increase innovation capacity and contribute to wider economic and social development.

This creates a gap between the breadth of university-industry engagement and the way its value is commonly assessed. Academic engagement with industry extends far beyond commercialisation, encompassing education, research, knowledge exchange and organisational cooperation. When evaluation focuses predominantly on commercial outputs, much of this activity, and the value created through it, remains insufficiently captured.

This matters as governments, funders and university leaders increasingly expect institutions to demonstrate their contribution to economic and societal development. The challenge is therefore not simply to collect more indicators, but to develop a more coherent way of understanding how engagement leads to results.

From engagement activity to impact

UIIN’s Pathway to Impact Framework provides this structure. It uses the logic model approach to trace how inputs enable activities, activities generate immediate outputs, and these outputs contribute to outcomes and longer-term impact. Logic models themselves have been applied across different contexts, including public programme evaluation, since the 1980s. UIIN adapts this approach specifically to university-industry engagement.

A central distinction is between outputs and outcomes. Outputs are the immediate products of an activity: a programme delivered, a partnership established, a prototype developed or participants reached. Outcomes concern what changes as a result. A student placement, for example, is an output; stronger employability, new professional capabilities or subsequent employment may be outcomes.

Keeping these stages separate matters because a high level of activity does not necessarily translate into meaningful change. Outputs are part of the pathway to impact rather than evidence of impact in themselves.

The framework also distinguishes between attribution and contribution. University-industry engagement rarely operates in isolation. Regional innovation, organisational development or workforce outcomes are influenced by many actors and conditions. Rather than attempting to claim that a particular engagement activity directly caused a wider change, the framework asks how it contributed to that change. This creates a more credible basis for assessing longer-term impact.

Five lenses for understanding engagement results

Tracing the pathway from inputs to impact provides the overall structure. UIIN then uses five criteria to examine the results generated along that pathway: who experiences the value, what type of engagement creates it, how direct or tangible the result is, what form of capital is created, and how that result can be evidenced.

University-industry engagement involves multiple stakeholders, and the same activity can create different outcomes for each of them. Students may gain skills and professional experience, academics may develop knowledge and networks, companies may access expertise and talent, while universities and wider communities may benefit in other ways. Mapping stakeholders therefore helps identify for whom value is created and whether it occurs at an individual, organisational or wider community level.

The nature of the activity also shapes the results. Research collaboration may generate new knowledge, intellectual property or research capability, while education cooperation may strengthen curricula, student skills or employability. Other forms of engagement, from entrepreneurship and professional mobility to shared facilities and governance, can produce different outcomes again. Understanding the type of cooperation is therefore essential to interpreting the results that follow.

Results also differ in their directness and tangibility. Some are readily observable, such as a prototype, new programme, patent or publication, while others emerge through stronger trust, mutual understanding, new ways of working or an increased capacity to collaborate. Recognising both helps ensure that measurement does not privilege only what is easiest to count.

The framework also considers the different forms of capital that engagement can create or strengthen: human, intellectual, organisational, strategic, social and economic capital. This broadens the understanding of value beyond financial return. A collaboration may generate little immediate revenue while developing skills, knowledge, relationships or organisational capacity that create value over time.

Finally, the framework considers how these results can be evidenced. Because many outcomes and impacts cannot be measured directly, particularly over longer time horizons, evaluation often requires a combination of quantitative and qualitative proxy measures. Quantitative indicators can show scale or change, while qualitative evidence helps explain what changed, for whom and why it mattered. Used together, they provide a fuller picture of the value created through engagement.

Measuring engagement as a pathway, not a single event

Taken together, the five criteria reinforce an important principle: the impact of university-industry engagement develops through a process. Inputs in form of resources and enabling conditions make cooperation possible. Activities bring stakeholders together. Those activities produce immediate outputs, which can contribute to changes in capabilities, behaviour, relationships and organisations. Over time, these outcomes may contribute to wider economic or societal impact.

Measurement therefore needs to follow the same pathway. Counting activities or outputs can show that engagement took place, but it cannot on its own establish what changed because of it. Equally, focusing only on long-term impact makes it difficult to understand the mechanisms through which engagement contributed to that change. Connecting the stages makes it possible to build a more credible evidence base: one that shows not only what happened, but also what followed and how the two are connected.

From measurement to better engagement

A broader approach to measurement is not only about demonstrating impact externally. It can also help universities and their partners make better decisions about engagement itself. When institutions understand which activities generate which forms of value, for whom and under what conditions, evaluation can inform future strategy. Universities can identify effective forms of cooperation, recognise outcomes that conventional indicators may overlook and make more informed decisions about where to invest resources.

This has implications for different actors. Policymakers and funders can encourage evaluation approaches that recognise a broader range of engagement outcomes. University leaders can embed engagement measures into institutional dashboards and incentive structures. Industry partners and universities can develop shared expectations and indicators at the outset of collaboration rather than attempting to establish impact retrospectively.

Ultimately, better measurement is not about producing more metrics. It is about creating a clearer line of sight between engagement and the value it creates. By considering who benefits, the nature of the activity, the directness and tangibility of results, the forms of capital created and the evidence available, UIIN’s Pathway to Impact Framework offers universities and their partners a more systematic way of doing this.

Download the full UIIN brief to explore the complete framework, impact pathways for different forms of university-industry engagement, and recommendations for policymakers, higher education leaders and business leaders.

Ready for more?

If you’re interested in exploring how impact goes beyond traditional measures, tune into our podcast The power of impact: Research that makes a difference. In this episode, Dr. Avni Misra (RMIT University) shares her five-stage approach to moving research beyond academia and into actionable outcomes, showing how meaningful impact can be created for society.

Balzhan Orazbayeva (author) is a Manager Strategic Initiatives at UIIN.
Todd Davey (author) is an Associate Professor at IMT-BS and Associate Partner at UIIN.
Alep Blancas (author) is a Policy Research and Marketing Associate at ICKR (EU).
Arno Meerman (author) is the CEO of UIIN.