Academic research contributes significantly to the wider economy and society. Existing research has primarily focused on patenting and entrepreneurship by academics while other types of academics researchers' engagement with external organizations - such as collaborative research or consulting - have found less attention even though they are more common.

The goal of this workshop series is three-fold:

(1) bring together a European network of researchers with an interest in this subject,
(2) establish the state of the art in this area of research, and
(3) investigate the feasibility of a trans-European research project.

Among the outputs of this workspages will be a systematic review of the literature on external engagement by academic researchers.