My university, in contrast, is pushing industry engagement like this pretty hard. I happen to disagree with that approach, but it is a thing. There is sort of

My university, in contrast, is pushing industry engagement like this pretty hard. I happen to disagree with that approach, but it is a thing. There is sort of a continuum between consulting and a research contract, admittedly, but I'll also note that I have government grants with deliverables. All it really means is that there's potentially interim products that need to be delivered, or that there's things that are less vague than papers and presentations that the agency/sponsor wants to see.