The cooperation process between university and industry is complex . It presents a set of factors that motivate and interfere building these relationships. The aim of this paper is to compare the main cooperation process’ motivations and barriers between university and industry in Brazil and Ireland. This is a study of multiple cases and configures itself as exploratory, with a qualitative approach . Data collection was executed by conducting a questionnaire with six technology transfer offices from Brazilian universities and three from Irish universities. The results show that the main motivations of Brazilian offices stem from financial issues and the possibility of being recognized whilst the Irish offices derived from social aspects. Regarding barriers, for the Brazilian offices these are mainly cultural and for the Irish offices the lack of entrepreneurial culture and the focus on basic science are the more common aspects, however, both experience excessive or rigid regulations.