1 Collaborative University-Business Inquiry into Elusive “Big Picture Thinking” Expertise Robin Adams 1 , Candee Krautkramer 2 , Peter Allen 2 , Richard Dodge 2 , Charles Morell 2 , Larry Sawyer 2 1 Purdue University, School of Engineering Education 2 Kimberly-Clark Corporation Abstract The context for this practitioner paper is a novel university-business collaboration between Kimberly-Clark Corporation (Kimberly-Clark), a Fortune 500 Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) multi-national company, and researchers from Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education. Kimberly-Clark is concerned about the loss of “breakthrough thinking” expertise and its role in realizing innovations that can redefine the Kimberly-Clark consumer experience, reimagine commercialization pathways, and revolutionize Kimberly-Clark business success and growth. This collaboration focuses on conducting research into one dimension of breakthrough thinking – big picture thinking (BPT). This is an elusive and tacit form of expertise that lacks an empirically grounded language necessary for guiding BPT hiring, talent development and succession planning. In this paper, we examine this collaboration to (1) characterize critical elements from project initiation to execution to operationalization, (2) summarize collaboration impacts, and (3) examine features of this collaboration through multiple lenses to generate implications for future university-business collaborations (big picture thinking, collaborative inquiry, participatory co-design, and industry action research). Collectively, these approaches provide ways for understanding the importance of broad stakeholder engagement from initial problem definition to solution development and evaluation, being responsive to emergent stakeholder perspectives, collaboratively inquiring into questions of mutual interest as an iterative and reflexive process, and an emphasis on learning, use and the potential for guiding transformational action. By examining our own process we hope to advance local knowledge at Kimberly-Clark as well as shareable knowledge that may guide other university-business collaborations that have similar goals. We conclude with how this collaboration has opened up new pathways for collaboration – changing perspectives on the kinds of high value collaborations that could be pursued. Keywords University-Business Collaboration, Collaborative Inquiry, Participatory Co-design, Industry Action Research, Expertise Elicitation, Big Picture Thinking 1 Context and Motivation The context for this practitioner paper is a novel university-business collaboration between Kimberly-Clark Corporation (Kimberly-Clark), a Fortune 500 Consumer