Managing the continuation of an innovation funnel from scientific knowledgeto commercialisation in a collaborative setting is a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to explore the best practices for governing the collaborative industry–academy innovation process. As an outcome, the paper presents best practices as well as the weaknesses and strengths of three mechanisms of collaborative innovation. The mechanisms are: (1) having a strong vision and enabling technologies, (2) orchestration by a globally operating core company and (3) regional clusters facilitated by public actors.