The cooperation between university and industry on research activities and development of entrepreneurial university is usually linked to technology transfer offices (Feldman et al, 2002) which contributes to increasing commercial activities: e.g. academic spin-offs, patenting, licensing, or royalty agreements research centers, science parks, and incubators (Aerts et al, 2007; Bercovitz and Feldman, 2006; Bozeman, 2000; Rothaermel et al, 2007; Wright et al, 2007).  

Some authors explained that individual academic – industry cooperation is more evident than cooperation in patenting and academic entrepreneurship (D’Este and Patel 2007; Perkmann and Walsh 2007) through (1) collaborative research which refers to joint research arrangements on R&D projects which is in most cases “pre competitive” and publicly funded (Hall et al. 2001), (2) contract research, which is directly commissioned by companies and (3) consulting to research or advisory services that individual academic provides to industry (Perkmann and Walsh 2008). Even though, most of these engagements are based on contracts some of these arrangements have been referred as informal collaboration (Link et al. 2007).

Research on individual engagement of academics in industry rarely included analysis of both, institutional and policy role in the individual engagement since policies are focused on commercialisation of research (Perkman et al, 2012). Moreover, the body of literature that examines the notion of collaboration of industry and higher education and university entrepreneurialism is oriented upon industrial nations.

Therefore, questions arise whether or not the models and ideas about  well-known research-intensive universities in highly industrial countries could be extrapolated  to entirely different, developing economies, universities and regions? Do individual academic engagements in industry dominate over institutional cooperation university of universities and industry?  What are the drivers of institutional change in transitional economies, post communist countries like Western Balkan countries are, that lead to development of entrepreneurial university?

Therefore, the following hypothesis is developed: “Institutional environment at universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that includes institutional culture and regulatory framework that defines cooperation between universities and industry, does not support institutional cooperation and tolerates non institutional cooperation between universities and industries.”

This paper uses an institutional perspective to analyze the factors associated with the environmental factors (formal and  informal), following the idea of Burton Clark (1983, 1998, 2005). The study will provide in-depth insight into the university infrastructure, policies (Bozeman and Gaughan, 2007; Markman et al., 2005a, b; Phan and Siegel, 2006), quality of university work (D’Este and Patel, 2007; Ponomariov, 2008; Ponomariov and Boardman, 2008) and institutional culture at universities (Louis idr., 1989, Haeussler and Colyvas, 2011)  that are directly linked to leading industrial sectors in Bosnia and Herzegovina.   The study will provide information on motivation for engagement of individual academics and will analyse differences based on gender (Azagra-Caro, 2007; Boardman, 2008; Giuliani et al., 2010; Goktepe-Hulten, 2010; Link et al., 2007), age (Boardman and Ponomariov, 2009; Haeussler and Colyvas, 2011; Link et al., 2007) , education background (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008), research background (Boardman, 2008, 2009; Boardman and Corley, 2008) previous cooperation with industry (Bekkers and Bodas Freitas, 2008), and individual scientific production (Bekkers and Bodas Freitas, 2008; Gulbrandsen and Smeby, 2005). The benefits on different ways of university- industry research cooperation, individual - institutional research cooperation will be documented in detail.

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