The difficult search for compromises in a Canadian Industry/University research partnership

Institutional innovations aimed at promoting closer relations between university and industry and, more particularly, research partnerships between faculties and firms, have multiplied in the last twenty years. New industry/university research partnerships (IURPs) are generally based upon a hybrid mode of management at all stages of the research process. In this article, we shed new light on the difficult conciliation between the logic of industry, technology and commercial interests on one side, and the logic of academic science and basic research on the other, through the in-depth study of a Canadian IURP - named Infotech1. We draw upon the polity model developed by Boltanski, Thevenot and Chiapello, in order to explore the various logics of justification mobilised by academic and industry participants. We identify the possibilities of compromise that were worked out by Infotech1 participants, and the procedures that were put into place to make these compromises concrete. Finally, we make a few hypotheses about IURPs and the necessary conditions for their success in the future.