Building and orchestrating university–industry collaboration ecosystems at Siemens
Over the past two decades, Siemens has fundamentally transformed the way it collaborates with universities, research institutes, startups, and other innovation stakeholders. What began as fragmented, opportunity-driven engagements has evolved into a globally connected, locally anchored Research and Innovation Ecosystem (RIE) model designed to foster long-term, trust-based partnerships and enable collaborative innovation at scale.
Siemens – Innovation-driven technology leader
Siemens is a global technology company operating across industry, infrastructure, mobility, and healthcare, with a strong focus on combining the physical and digital worlds. Innovation is a core pillar of Siemens’ strategy, supported by significant and sustained investment in research and development. With more than €6 billion in annual R&D spending, tens of thousands of R&D employees, and a large portfolio of patents Siemens continuously advances technologies such as industrial AI, digital twins, automation, and sustainable infrastructure solutions. This innovation strength enables Siemens to drive productivity, resilience, and sustainability for customers across complex industrial value chains.
From fragmented engagements to strategic ecosystems
Until theUntil the early 2000s, Siemens’ university–industry collaborations were largely decentralised and transactional. Engagements lacked unified agreements, overarching strategies, and systematic integration across research, innovation, and talent sourcing. As a result, potential synergies were often underutilised, and partnerships remained isolated rather than mutually reinforcing.
Between 2001 and 2021, Siemens initiated a structured transition toward building trustful, long-lasting partnerships, using a tiered approach. Since October 1, 2021, this approach has been fully embedded in the company’s global Research and Innovation Ecosystem strategy. The objective is no longer individual projects with individual partners, but the orchestration of collaborative, cross-fertilised ecosystems that combine academic excellence, industrial capabilities, and regional innovation capacity. A critical success factor was the establishment of dedicated relationship managers on both the Siemens and university sides. These roles ensured the partnerships remained active, strategically aligned, and continuously nurtured over time, transforming collaboration from a formal agreement into a living, evolving relationship.
The transformation was driven by both structural change and strategic reflection. Portfolio shifts within Siemens, including the spin-off of Siemens Energy, marked an important inflection point. More importantly, Siemens recognised that leading universities had evolved into orchestrators of regional innovation ecosystems, connecting research, startups, and industry. The global pandemic provided the pause needed to reassess existing collaboration models and accelerate the shift toward an ecosystem-based approach.
The Siemens Research and Innovation Ecosystem (RIE) model
At the core of the Siemens RIE model lies the concept of locally anchored yet globally connected ecosystems. Each ecosystem is coordinated by a designated lead university, which orchestrates collaboration and innovation activities within the region. This structure enables deep regional engagement while ensuring global connectivity across ecosystems.
Today, Siemens operates various world-class Research and Innovation Ecosystems worldwide, covering research and innovation hubs in Europe, Asia and the US. Together, these ecosystems form a distributed network that facilitates knowledge exchange, joint research, talent development, and innovation transfer[1].
Stakeholders and roles within the ecosystem
The Siemens RIE brings together a diverse set of stakeholders, each contributing distinct capabilities and perspectives. Universities act as central hubs for research and knowledge creation, advancing technologies across disciplines while educating future talent. Research institutes complement this role by providing specialised infrastructure and deep technological expertise.
Startups play a critical role by challenging established paradigms, experimenting with novel ideas, and accelerating innovation through agility and creativity. Industrial partners contribute resources, market access, and implementation capabilities, while governments support the ecosystem through funding, regulatory frameworks, and policy alignment. Siemens employees themselves are an integral part of the ecosystem, contributing diverse perspectives and translating collaborative outcomes into organisational impact.
Managing tensions between industry and academia
Despite shared interests, university–industry collaboration is shaped by structural differences and inherent biases on both sides. Industry partners often prioritise return on investment, exclusive intellectual property ownership, and predictable outcomes, while academia values freedom of research, publication rights, and long-term flexibility. Both sides also face high levels of complexity and a tendency to operate in silos.
The Siemens RIE model explicitly acknowledges these tensions and addresses them through unified master research agreements, transparent governance structures, and dedicated relationship managers on both sides. This professionalised partnership management reduces friction, builds trust, and creates a foundation for sustainable collaboration.
A broad portfolio of engagement formats
Siemens deliberately covers a wide spectrum of university engagement formats within a single strategic framework. These range from education and curriculum development to co-location and training centres, sponsorships and memberships, startup engagements, and both corporate-sponsored and publicly funded research. Additional elements include internships, student projects, industrial PhDs and postdoctoral programs, lectureships, industrial professorships, and endowed chairs.
By integrating these diverse formats into one coherent engagement strategy, Siemens ensures that research, innovation, and talent development mutually reinforce each other rather than compete for attention or resources.
Measuring what matters in ecosystems
Measuring success in innovation ecosystems goes beyond traditional key performance indicators. Siemens allocates a certain percentage of its corporate R&D funding to bilateral research with universities and research institutes and tracks a broad set of metrics, including contracted and publicly funded research, joint publications, intellectual property, industrial PhDs and postdocs, new hires, memberships, and advisory board participation.
At the same time, Siemens recognises the limitations of purely quantitative metrics. While dashboards can help justify investments, demonstrate value creation, and support strategic decision-making, they cannot fully capture ecosystem value, cultural change, or long-term relationship quality. Meaningful KPIs therefore require “human intelligence” and are complemented by qualitative storytelling and global best-practice sharing.
Key ingredients for win–win partnerships
The Siemens case highlights several critical success factors for building genuine mutual value in university–industry partnerships. These include aligning on shared goals and clear expectations, integrating all engagement formats into a unified strategy, and developing customised innovation agendas and roadmaps. Leveraging the full potential of the broader ecosystem and acting as an orchestrator rather than a transactional partner are equally important.
Dedicated partnership managers, transparent and open communication, and long-term commitments of money, people, and attention further strengthen collaboration. Ultimately, reliability, respect, and consistency emerge as decisive factors in establishing trustful, sustainable partnerships that benefit all stakeholders involved.
References
[1] Siemens. (n.d.). Siemens research and innovation ecosystem. Available at https://www.siemens.com/en-us/company/innovation/collaborations-partnerships/research-innovation-ecosystem/
Ready for more?
How does industry move from collaboration to enabling impact at scale? In the Future of Universities Thoughtbook | Entrepreneurial Edition, Natascha Eckert explores this question in her chapter on The Role of Industry in Entrepreneurial Universities: From Idea to Impact.
You can access a preview of the book here or read the full edition as a UIIN Member.
A strategically oriented executive, Natascha Eckert (author) brings extensive experience leading innovation and technology-driven teams at Siemens AG and OSRAM GmbH. Previously responsible for the Siemens Research and Innovation Ecosystem, she’s now a Senior Consultant specialising in academic-business translation and advising international universities, an angel investor, and a mentor for women in tech. Natascha also sits on the UIIN Advisory Board and serves as a Senior Fellow at UIDP.
