27th July 2012, 09:10 AM
Although we (a commercial unit) have lots of links with universities (mainly with specialists to be fair, but some academics too), and would certainly be open to the idea, we've always got the impression that a lot of the mainstream academic staff would treat having direct dealings with us something akin to climbing into bed with the anti-Christ (a bit like many of them seem to persist in remaining stolidly oblivious to the existence of grey literature, to judge by 'academic' tomes that keep coming out) - and as it happens we've been passed (by one of the staff in question who thought it was funny) a copy of a 'memo to all staff' at one nearby Uni basically banning them from having any contact which didn't involve cash being transferred into a university bank account. Luckily that's been pretty much ignored. Some courses like conservation seem to pretty much rely on material from commercial sites for their students to work on - as an e.g. I've got a large cemetery assemblage (lots of shiny stuff) which has had unofficial free storage for the last 10 years in exchange for it being used on a regular basis as a teaching collection, better than it rotting in a museum store somewhere.
A large part of the issue of collaborative work with Unis would be who paid for it - IFA culture says we can't use unpaid students on commercial jobs, and Unis arent going to pay for a load of our guys on 'research' digs as long as they think they've got competent 'in house' staff for free :face-thinks:
A large part of the issue of collaborative work with Unis would be who paid for it - IFA culture says we can't use unpaid students on commercial jobs, and Unis arent going to pay for a load of our guys on 'research' digs as long as they think they've got competent 'in house' staff for free :face-thinks: