5) Collaboration between organizations. Scien-tists and engineers employed in different organiza-tions often collaborate on research projects ofmutual interest. Such collaboration may be spurredby informal contacts or prior acquaintance of theresearchers. It is also possible that when a scientistleaves an organization and joins another, he or shemay carry on an unfinished research project in thenew organization with the continued collaborationof former colleagues. Inter-organizational col-laboration may also be necessitated by a commun-ity of concerns (as between two government agen-cies) or by the complexity of a research project, orwhen researchers in one organization may need touse expensive equipment or specialized serviceavailable at another organization. According torecent data published by the U.S. National ScienceFoundation, research collaboration between in-dustries and academic institutions has been gradu-ally increasing [ 1 1 J.
Inter-organisation collaboration