In the last two decades, emerging countries’ predominant strategy of expanding the size of the graduate pool by setting up new universities, without paying much attention to their quality, has resulted in a massive increase in the number of non-elite universities compared to the number of elite universities [1], [2], [3]. In non-elite universities in Brazil, China, and India, the percentage of faculty holding PhDs was only 27%, 20%, and 10% respectively in 2009, while the percentage in elite universities in all three countries was approximately 50%[3]. Human Capital research (e.g. Neal, 1995) suggests that in order to be prepared for jobs including those in R&D departments, two levels of skills are necessary: industry-specific and firm-specific[4]. As universities in emerging countries are constrained by a lack of quality resources, external industrial training programs could be perceived as ‘complementary resources’ (Lavie, 2006) to their existing internal teaching resources, enabling them to fill their resource voids[5]. 

In the context of developing nations like Nepal too, the theoretical approach of study is something Nepalese students have been following for ages. They are used to following the contents of the books and giving exams. In engineering too, most of the students are focused on only passing the exams and they are not aware of the importance of the actual implementations and applications of the context they are studying. Industry-academia collaboration provides linkage between the faculty members of the universities and the industries. It is an opportunity for both the universities and the industries as it helps in enhancing the growth and development of both the students and the industry. These collaborations are often encouraged at the national level and many studies have emphasized their strategic importance for firms seeking to gain new knowledge, forge new relationships, and yield higher research and development (R&D) productivity [6], [7], [8].