The diversified landscape of museums in Germany includes a number of so-called research museums. These institutions of national importance and international reputation, among them museums of science and technology like the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven, have developed close links with universities in one way or another. Joint appointments and multiple collaborations in research, teaching, and communication of science aim at strengthening the bonds between museums and academia which are often understood as two discrete and distinct institutions having not much in common.

This paper aims at discussing the opportunities, challenges, and experiences with museum-university-collaborations by inspecting the German case. It raises a number of crucial questions related to both institutional and individual co-operation. Who is profiting from collaboration in what way? What are the gains, what are the costs of cooperating? How can museums strike a balance between supporting academic activities and ensuring institutional autonomy? What are best practice examples in the long run? What formats of collaboration have proofed to be difficult, for what looks like an ideal fit of interest – a happy marriage in fact – on first sight often involves problems and tensions that result from the systemic differences between these two discrete types of institutionalized production and dissemination of knowledge, if one looks closer. The paper ends by placing the German experiences in an international context.