Identifying critical success factors of research collaborations between universities and defense industries in Iran

There is an institutionalized connection between industry and university in developed countries. However, in Iran, despite the great emphasis on establishing and strengthening connections between defense industries and universities, there is no specific process to build an effective collaboration, and the current policies are not highly sufficient for existing needs. The main reason is lack of proper identification of critical success factors in industry-university collaboration. So, the main purpose of this article is to identify the critical success factors of defense industry and university collaboration. In this regard, 19 critical success factors are identified and extracted in four dimensions as Interactions design, knowledge, social, and collaboration success by literature review through which the research model and hypotheses are proposed consequently. A questionnaire is designed to collect the experts’ opinions. The four dimensions and their factors are measured through frequency tables, mean and standard deviation. In addition, effectiveness of each factor on the collaboration is determined through one sample test. Also, another questionnaire (including 36 items) is designed and distributed among users, and its questions are assessed and confirmed via Conformity Factor Analysis. Then, effectiveness of all success factors is verified by path analysis, and the research model and hypothesis are confirmed through the findings resulted from structural equation modeling. Finally, some solutions and practical suggestions are made to improve and enhance the collaborations between university and defense industries.