Design research processes often take place in publicly funded projects. Besides designers and users, public funding increasingly requires industry partners to participate in such projects. We present empirical insights from a joint research project in order to assess the claims connected with such funding structures and to report on challenges for design research within them. We identify three themes of conflict between academic and industry partners and elaborate on the sources of them. The presentation of our results builds on the distinction between 'academia' and 'industry', which is frequently applied by political funding agencies. The analysis of the respective stakeholders' actual interests, however, will prove such a dichotomy to be misleading and simplistic.