We study the patterns of engagement in collaborative research among university researchers. We investigate how frequently researchers engage in collaborative research with third parties, as well as the factors that affect the probability of interacting with industry as compared to other types of partners. By focusing on a large sample of recipients of collaborative research grants, we examine how environmental and individual characteristics impact on both the size of the network set up by academic researchers, and the type of partner chosen. Our results demonstrate that individual characteristics matter both for the size and the type of the network, while department-level characteristics are particularly important for the type of the network set up by the researcher.