University RE Clients - Tracking Research Collaborations (not prospect research)?

There are a variety of aspects to this - one is as a CRM solution to track industry partnerships around research projects, another is to track and manage both the relationships and the engagement details around the research.

The former could be done with pretty much with RE's out of the box functionality, the latter could potentially be done through the use of opportunities/proposals.

My view is that at the end of the day, the people that they are talking to/with will have a fair degree of crossover with existing relationships around donors and alumni.

Example:

Professor Smith is a researcher at our university working on… warp drives or something. He has commercial agreements and potentially funding from XYZ Corp, funding his research. He has colleagues at other Universities / research centres who are also working on this in a collaborative sense - some of which may be alumni, or former staff (we also capture staff here on RE).

My understanding is that they want to be able to track the involvement of XYZ Corp and at least that the relationships exist with his colleagues, both so that there are reportable connections with industry and other institutions, and also so that others don't approach XYZ Corp out of the blue with research proposals, and/or that there is institutional knowledge in the CRM that XYZ corp has an existing relationship.