Corporate Connections to University Research

Just how do some of those private/public partnerships with corporations work? This is an interview with Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton:

Q: TI donates to the universities, and they give you products? Is it that simple?

A: No, not anywhere near as simple. There's no product development going on between ourselves and universities. They have people who dream of what can be done or what may be possible. They also have a powerful capability to assemble multidisciplinary teams. In medical technology, they can get electrical engineers, computer scientists, biologists, chemists and people from the med schools in the same room.