STI–DUI co-evolution, governance, and institutionalization in an industry–academia collaboration: Automotive and urban mobility innovation hub

PURPOSE: This study investigates how an industrial-academic innovation hub governs the transition from siloed academic exploration and industrial exploitation toward durable ecosystem synergy. Addressing the persistent gap between scientific production and real-world application, the innovation paradox, it examines the temporal co-evolution of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and Doing, Using and Interacting (DUI) learning modes, the governance mechanisms enabling institutionalization, and the organizational conditions under which the fragile handover between innovation and operationalization is successfully navigated. METHODOLOGY: We employ a longitudinal, mixed-methods single-case study of CARNET, a future-mobility research hub in Spain, covering its entire institutional trajectory. Four complementary data sources are assembled across STI, DUI, Legacy, and Organizational Process and Governance dimensions, combining extraction of key quantitative information from primary documentary sources, chronological mapping of legal instruments, and thematic analysis of in-depth stakeholder interviews. FINDINGS: STI and DUI modes co-evolve in a mutually reinforcing dynamic across the hub's lifecycle. Contrary to the STI-first founding logic of conventional assumptions, grounding the hub in relational industrial practice before scientific legitimacy (DUI-first) provided the foundation on which the two modes co-evolved. The fragile handover is located at the university-industry interface, where governance formalization has penetrated operational layers without reaching the strategic and academic layers. Institutionalization, achieved through the cumulative alignment of contractual durability, relational capital, scientific legitimacy, and governance formalization, is identified as the primary structural resolution. IMPLICATIONS: Theoretically, the paper provides longitudinal evidence of STI-DUI co-evolution within a single institution, refining the Foundational Legacy Model for industrial-academic hubs and challenging STI-first sequencing assumptions; practically, it calls for extending governance formalization beyond operational layers, securing basal structural funding to escape the grant-funding trap, and considering DUI-first logic as a viable design. ORIGINALITY & VALUE: The paper offers an original institutional study of an industry-academia innovation hub that shows that the transition from silos to synergies is a governance achievement requiring a deliberately constructed institutional architecture.