Broadly speaking, industry-academia collaboration encompasses all forms of cooperative activities between academia—including professors, research teams, and universities—and industry, including patent and technology transfer, research and development, testing, consulting, personnel training, and student internships.

These forms of industry-academia collaboration can be broadly categorized into three types of economic activity and governance models: technology acquisition, relationship-building and strategic partnerships, and talent development. In a narrower sense, however, industry-academia collaboration specifically refers to joint or commissioned research and development.