Collaboration with business and industry is an important feature of the University's activities. A third of the Department of Engineering's research is carried out in collaboration with industry with many innovative technologies emerging from joint projects.

At Judge Business School, responsive programmes create new management skills to meet the challenges arising from a rapidly changing world. Exciting developments include the establishment of an exchange programme between Judge Business School and the Indian School of Business, and the creation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Professorship of Indian Business and Enterprise endowed by the Indian government, and based in the BP-funded Centre for India & Global Business.

Only 55 miles from London, Cambridge sits at the hub of an enterprise cluster. The 'Cambridge Phenomenon' took off in the 1960s and was substantially boosted by the foundation of the Cambridge Science Park by Trinity College and the creation of St John's Innovation Centre by St John's College. Other technology parks have been established in the surrounding region with the result that more than 1,500 hightech firms, employing more than 45,000 people, are based within a 25-mile radius of Cambridge. In 2006 the University set up Cambridge Enterprise to provide in-depth support for its academics in commercialising their ideas.