The authors built their analysis on a structured review of 57 peer-reviewed studies, integrating three established theoretical lenses: the Triple Helix Model, which describes the interplay of universities, industry, and government; the National Innovation Systems framework, which treats innovation as the product of interconnected institutions; and Governance Theory, which focuses on how relationships among actors are coordinated and steered. By weaving these perspectives together, the team set out to identify what distinguishes transitional settings from mature innovation systems such as those in Western Europe or North America. Their conclusion is that conventional models of university-industry collaboration, which typically assume well-functioning institutions as a starting condition, simply do not travel well to post-conflict and post-authoritarian environments. In those contexts, the institutions themselves are part of the problem.

The evidence assembled in the review points to a cluster of mutually reinforcing barriers. Weak institutional coordination means that universities, firms, and public agencies often operate in silos, with no effective body aligning their priorities. Fragmented policy frameworks leave research and innovation initiatives scattered across ministries and programs without coherent strategy. Limited mutual trust between academics and business leaders discourages the long-term commitments that joint research and development requires. Insufficient university autonomy and research capacity prevent institutions from acting as reliable partners, while misaligned incentives—where academic careers reward publications rather than applied outcomes, and firms demand short-term returns—undermine the willingness to cooperate on either side. Beneath all of this lie historically embedded institutional legacies that continue to shape behavior long after formal political transitions have occurred.

What makes these findings technically significant is the way the authors reframe the problem. Rather than treating governance as a fixed backdrop, they propose understanding it as a dynamic process: a sequence of institutional coordination, trust-building, policy alignment, and progressive consolidation of relationships among universities, industry, and government. In this view, institutional fragility and historical legacies are not obstacles to be overcome before collaboration can begin, but integral dimensions of the collaboration process itself. This context-sensitive collaborative governance perspective extends the Triple Helix and innovation-system approaches by foregrounding the mechanisms required for university-industry relationships to emerge, stabilize, and generate sustainable research and development outcomes in environments where those relationships have never functioned smoothly.

Kosovo and Albania serve as the study’s illustrative contexts, and their profiles are instructive for a much wider set of countries. Both are economies in transition, shaped by post-conflict or authoritarian legacies, with higher education sectors that have expanded rapidly but often without commensurate investment in research infrastructure or institutional autonomy. Firms in both countries tend to be small and medium-sized enterprises with limited internal research capacity, which means they have much to gain from academic partnerships but few resources to initiate them. Public institutions, meanwhile, frequently lack the coordination capacity to broker and sustain such partnerships. The result is an innovation ecosystem in which every actor has reasons to collaborate but no reliable framework for doing so—a situation the authors argue is characteristic of transitional economies more broadly.

The conceptual contribution of the paper lies in connecting previously fragmented strands of literature. Work on institutional governance, innovation systems, and university-industry relations has largely developed in parallel, with each field addressing a piece of the puzzle. By bringing them together, Nuka and colleagues establish a conceptual foundation for future empirical investigation in Kosovo, Albania, and comparable transition economies. This matters because empirical research in such settings has often imported frameworks designed for mature systems, producing findings that misdiagnose local realities. A framework that explicitly accounts for institutional fragility allows researchers to ask more precise questions: not merely whether collaboration exists, but what governance conditions enable it to emerge and endure.

The practical implications are equally concrete. For policymakers, the study argues for more coherent policies that align research, innovation, and industrial strategies rather than leaving them dispersed across agencies. For universities, it highlights the need for institutional capacity-building and greater autonomy so that academic institutions can act as credible, responsive partners. For industry stakeholders, it points toward trust-based partnerships built on realistic expectations and aligned priorities rather than one-off transactions. The authors emphasize that these interventions are interdependent: policy coherence without trust-building produces paper frameworks, while trust without institutional capacity produces fragile pilot projects that collapse when key individuals move on. Sustainable collaboration, in their account, requires progress on all fronts simultaneously.

The study also situates university-industry collaboration within the broader agenda of sustainable development, positioning well-governed research partnerships as a mechanism for advancing Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8, 9, and 17—covering quality education, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and partnerships for the goals. This framing reflects a growing recognition that innovation-led development in emerging economies cannot be achieved by universities or firms alone. When collaboration functions, it channels academic knowledge into productive capacity, creates demand-driven research agendas, and builds the absorptive capacity that allows economies to adopt and adapt new technologies. When it fails, the result is a persistent gap between what universities produce and what economies need, reinforcing dependence on imported knowledge and limiting local innovation.

For the international research community, the paper offers a caution against one-size-fits-all innovation policy. Donor programs and national strategies alike have often assumed that establishing technology transfer offices, incubators, or matching funds will automatically generate collaboration, mirroring models that succeeded in mature systems. The Kosovo and Albania evidence suggests that such instruments underperform when the underlying governance relationships are absent. The authors’ framework implies that interventions should be sequenced and designed to build coordination capacity, trust, and aligned incentives first, creating the conditions in which conventional collaboration tools can then take root. As transition economies worldwide—from the Western Balkans to Central Asia—seek to convert expanding higher education systems into engines of innovation, this study provides both a diagnostic lens and a roadmap, arguing that the quality of governance relationships, not the mere presence of universities, firms, and public institutions, determines whether research and development collaboration can flourish and endure.

Subject of Research: Governance of university-industry R&D collaboration for innovation in transition economies

Article Title: Governance of university industry research and development collaboration for innovation in transition economies

Article References: Nuka, D., Troshani, I., & Mijo, K. C. (2026). Governance of university industry research and development collaboration for innovation in transition economies. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04736-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04736-y

Keywords: university-industry collaboration, R&D governance, transition economies, innovation systems, Triple Helix model, Kosovo, Albania, institutional trust, sustainable development goals, research policy, Governance, university

The research team, led by Drini Imami of the Agricultural University of Tirana together with colleagues from the University of Prishtina, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences and Corvinus University of Budapest, surveyed 183 farmers engaged in medicinal and aromatic plant production across Albania. Rather than simply cataloguing who had adopted which practice, the researchers applied a statistical technique known as partial least squares structural equation modeling, or PLS-SEM. This approach allows scientists to test an entire chain of hypothesized relationships simultaneously, linking farm characteristics to climate awareness, and climate awareness in turn to concrete adaptation behavior. It is a method well suited to questions where the underlying drivers, such as awareness or perceived risk, cannot be observed directly but must be inferred from multiple survey responses.

The results reveal a clear and consequential pathway. Farmers with higher levels of education and those who had acquired medicinal and aromatic plant-specific skills or training were significantly more likely to be aware of climate change and its potential consequences for their operations. That awareness, in turn, emerged as a strong predictor of adaptation. Farmers who recognized the climate threat were markedly more likely to adopt measures such as diversifying their crop portfolio, switching to certified seeds and seedlings, and adjusting the mix of plant varieties they cultivate. In statistical terms, awareness functions as a mediating variable: it translates external pressures and personal capabilities into deliberate on-farm change.

Farm size also mattered. Larger operations were more likely to implement adaptation measures, a pattern consistent with a well-documented dynamic in agricultural economics. Bigger farms typically command more land, labor and capital, and they can absorb the short-term costs and risks of trying something new, whether that means investing in certified planting material or experimenting with alternative species. Smaller holders, by contrast, often face resource constraints that make even low-cost adjustments difficult. The study’s authors point to this asymmetry as a warning sign: if adaptation is concentrated among better-endowed farms, climate change may widen existing inequalities within rural communities rather than simply imposing uniform losses.

Perceived climate impacts played a distinct role in the causal chain. Farmers who reported experiencing or observing climate-related damage, such as reduced yields or stressed plants, showed elevated awareness, and that awareness indirectly encouraged adaptation. This finding aligns with a growing body of international evidence suggesting that direct experience with climate extremes is one of the most powerful motivators of farmer response. Yet the Albanian data also imply that waiting for experience to accumulate is a risky strategy. By the time impacts are severe enough to register universally, the options for graceful adaptation may have narrowed considerably, particularly for perennial and wild-harvested species that cannot be replanted or relocated easily.

Perhaps the most striking number in the study is thirteen. Only 13 percent of the surveyed farmers reported receiving regular training related to their crop systems. For a sector that is export-oriented and ecologically delicate, this represents a substantial information and capacity gap. Medicinal and aromatic plants are not commodity grains; their market value depends heavily on quality standards, phytochemical profiles and compliance with certification requirements in destination markets. Climate change can alter essential oil content and terpene composition in these plants, meaning that both the agronomic and the commercial dimensions of production are climate-sensitive. Without structured extension services and training programs, most farmers are left to interpret a shifting environment on their own, relying on tradition and trial rather than science.

The export dimension sharpens the stakes considerably. Albania’s medicinal and aromatic plant sector supplies international buyers who demand consistent quality and traceable production. A climate-driven failure in this chain would not remain a local problem; it would ripple through value chains and into the livelihoods of the mountain households that depend on harvesting and cultivation. The study’s authors argue that strengthening extension services, improving access to farmer training, and easing resource constraints are essential for supporting adaptive land-use decisions. They call for targeted policy interventions that integrate advisory services, climate risk management, and improved access to land and finance, a package designed to enhance the resilience of both production systems and the rural livelihoods they sustain.

The Albanian case also resonates with a broader scientific conversation about medicinal plants and climate change. Researchers have documented climate-induced shifts in essential oil production and chemical composition in alpine aromatic species, and global assessments have warned that many medicinal plant species face range contractions and population declines as temperatures rise. In mountain regions from the Himalaya to the Balkans, these plants often occupy narrow ecological niches, which makes them particularly sensitive indicators of environmental change. When the farmers who cultivate or gather them lack access to climate information and adaptive resources, the risk is not only economic but also a quiet erosion of botanical knowledge and biodiversity that has accumulated over generations.

What makes the study methodologically notable is its use of structural equation modeling on a relatively modest sample, an approach that requires careful validation of the measurement instruments but yields insights that simple cross-tabulations cannot provide. By confirming that awareness mediates the relationship between education, training and adaptation, the analysis gives policymakers a concrete lever to pull. Investments in education and targeted training do not merely inform farmers; they measurably increase the likelihood of adaptive behavior. Conversely, policies that focus solely on subsidizing inputs or technologies, without building the underlying awareness and capacity, may fail to achieve durable change.

For Albania’s medicinal and aromatic plant farmers, the message of the research is ultimately one of conditional optimism. The adaptive pathway exists: awareness leads to action, and awareness can be built. But the current infrastructure supporting that pathway is thin, reaching roughly one farmer in eight with regular training. Closing that gap, the authors conclude, is not a luxury but a necessity for a sector whose products, markets and communities all sit on the front line of a changing climate. As climate pressures intensify across the Mediterranean and Balkan regions, the Albanian experience offers a replicable lesson: resilience in specialized agricultural systems begins not in the field, but in the flow of knowledge to the people who work it.

Subject of Research: Climate change awareness and adaptation strategies among medicinal and aromatic plant farmers in Albania

Article Title: Cultivating resilience: climate awareness and adaptation among Albanian medicinal and aromatic plant farmers

Article References: Imami, D., Miftari, I., Zhllima, E., van Bruggen-Wichern, J., & Darr, D. (2026). Cultivating resilience: climate awareness and adaptation among Albanian medicinal and aromatic plant farmers. Regional Environmental Change, 26(4), Article 202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-026-02683-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10113-026-02683-y

Keywords: climate change adaptation, medicinal and aromatic plants, Albania, smallholder farmers, PLS-SEM, climate awareness, agricultural extension, rural livelihoods, crop diversification, export agriculture, mountain farming, farm training