Building a bridge and getting over it: Academic research meeting tourism industry needs

Universities are increasingly finding themselves wedged between performance indicators on academic publications and the ability to secure funding for research through grants requiring applied research and partnerships with industry. This paper examines the development of an industry-focused research agenda that can meet both academic and industry engagement performance requirements. It considers the forces at play in the development of such an agenda: A willingness on behalf of the university to engage with industry and be more relevant to 'real-world' issues, but at the same time meet key performance indicators around creating publishable research for international conferences and journals. Results provide a ten-point industry-driven agenda for research in the Cairns region identifying opportunities to develop academic research from applied studies. Conclusions indicate that whilst an industry-focused research agenda can identify applied research projects, there are also plenty of opportunities to apply these findings to the generation of academic knowledge.