Although many studies have been conducted on the drivers of and barriers to research collaborations, current literature provides limited insights into the ways in which individual researchers choose to engage in different collaborative projects. Using a choice experiment, we studied the factors that drive this choice using a representative sample of 3145 researchers from Western Europe and North America who publish in English. We find that for most researchers, the expected publication of research in scientific journals deriving from a project is the most decisive factor driving their collaboration choices. Moreover, most respondents prefer to collaborate with other partners than industry. However, different factors’ influence varies across groups of researchers. These groups are characterised as going for the ‘puzzle’ (60% of the sample), the ‘ribbon’ (33%) or the ‘gold’ (8%), i.e., primarily oriented toward intellectual goals, recognition or money, respectively. This heterogeneity shows that a combination of interventions will be required for governments aiming to promote university–industry collaborations.

尽管已经进行了许多研究合作的推动因素和障碍研究，但现有文献对个别研究者选择参与不同合作项目的方式的了解有限。通过选择实验，我们使用了3145名来自西欧和北美的以英语发表的研究人员的代表性样本，研究了促成这一选择的因素。我们发现，对于大多数研究人员而言，期望从项目中获得的科学期刊上发表的研究成果是决定他们进行合作选择的最决定性因素。此外，大多数受访者更愿意与行业以外的其他合作伙伴合作。但是，不同因素对研究人员的影响各不相同。这些群体的特征是“困惑”（样本的60％），“色带”（33％）或“金”（8％），即分别主要面向智力目标，认可或金钱。这种异质性表明，旨在促进大学与行业合作的政府需要采取多种干预措施。