One of the biggest differences between industry research and academic is revenue. Industry end goal is to make the most money by having the best products and in academia, it is to find new approaches/solutions to a problem (whether relevant or not to the end goal) to receive more funding. I think a more effective model would be to tie in industry or outside entities looking for real and quick results with the manpower/talent of academic research. With companies providing funding for a solution to a concrete problem will provide more results. An example I can think of is Dr. Chandra doing research for the armed forces. He is heavily funded by them which entails a huge lab with promising results. There are other labs that we know of in NJIT BME that have barely seen groundbreaking results, some labs are doing the same things as they were during my freshman year. Using academic talent to a more practical and relevant topic is more effective in engineering research. I believe the engineering research would always have the goal of patents, just like companies.