University-Industry Partnerships in the Humanities:  View from the partner and academic perspective

1. Abstract

While university-industry partnerships are common in the sciences, they are more rare on the humanities side. This provides an opportunity to explore one such collaboration based in the humanities. In this case, exploring open scholarship, the partnership involves libraries, academic-adjacent organizations and academics. Through a series of interviews, these parties express that they find the experience positive and see both benefits and challenges, albeit from different perspectives. For example, libraries and academic-adjacent organizations focus on learning while the academics are interested in moving research to production. The challenges include a focus on cultural differences and the partners' ability to navigate these. In terms of measures of success and desired outcomes, they are both in agreement that these measures and outcomes are soft in nature, though focused on influencing government policy on social scholarship. The partnership members will continue to invest time, resources, and intellectual capacity to the endeavor.