Working with the University

Collaborating with Flinders University has many benefits.  As a small, interdisciplinary University, Flinders has the ability to draw on a broad spectrum of resources to develop customised solutions to meet your needs.  Research at Flinders is socially relevant and socially engaged.  Our researchers work with people to get outcomes, which enables them to realise the full social returns of research and development investments. 

There are many ways in which you can engage with the researchers, some of which include:

Research Partnerships

Research partnerships are formal collaborative relationships established with the objective to cooperate on research and development activities.  These kinds of activities can be quite varied in terms of the level of industry involvement, and can range from industry simply funding and guiding the research through to “bench-level” cooperative work.  Most of these types of arrangements are open to benefit from government funding sources. 

The main benefit of this type of engagement lies in the development and transfer of tacit knowledge.  Through this type of engagement, both parties can gain access to implicit knowledge which can provide parties with unique competencies that cannot be easily replicated by competitors. 

Research Services

Contract research and academic consulting are paid-for services performed by university researchers for external clients.  Unlike research partnerships, research or consulting contracts define specific objectives and deliverables.  Consulting activities typically seek to exploit existing expertise in order to find the best and most appropriate solution to a problem, while contract research is more concerned with an industry partner looking for a researcher to explore specific, previously unresearched aspects of a problem.

Testing services are also available through a number of specialist analytical facilities.  Flinders University has core laboratories and facilities that provide technology-based services and state-of-the-art research capabilities to internal and external researchers as well as external private and public organisations.  The University's testing facilities deliver accurate measurement and diagnostic services by experience technical staff.