Creating synergy: Developing new forms of partnership between university and industry

Abstract

An innovative university/industry partnership has been developed between the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Centrelink (the Australian Government's Service Delivery Agency). This partnership has been established on a ‘no exchange of monies’ basis and has proved to provide clear specific benefits to the School of Social Work at ACU and Centrelink's National Social Work Services Team and also to both organisations more generally. The authors argue that this type of university/industry partnership offers a framework that has wide applicability in the human services where relationships between training institutions and ‘the field’ appear to be becoming increasingly difficult.

Keywords:

• academia
• partnership
• practice