Assessing the role of collaborative innovation in industry-education integration and economic development

Collaborative Innovation (CI) activities help educational institutions work with industries while driving industrial progress and the Chinese economy. In emerging economies, it becomes a struggle to understand the partnerships and collaborative methods that lead to workforce talent, industrial growth, and economic development outcomes. The research creates a basic structural framework that connects CI to achieve industrial transformation and economic progress. A mixed-methods approach is employed through collecting surveys from 622 participants and interviews from 102 participants, who were recruited from the survey participants. Findings indicate that industry-education integration strongly drives enterprise collaboration (β = 0.629, f2 = 0.653), talent development (β = 0.592, f2 = 0.390), which leads to industrial upgradation (β = 0.421, f2 = 0.282), and economic development (β = 0.671, f2 = 0.818) with a predictive value of 0.462. The research contributes to the theoretical understanding of integrative influences on linking innovation and knowledge transformation to provide industrial development. CI made through the partnership of enterprises, universities, and government enhances workforce skills to upgrade industries to achieve economic growth. It also offers practical support for policymakers, university and industrial managers to implement supportive strategies to improve innovation for achieving collaborative needs.