In this article, the benefits and forms of university-industry cooperation are analyzed, and the role of academic engagement for MNEs is discussed in relation to the decision to internationalize R&D in host countries. Different forms of academic engagement are reviewed on the examples from the Russian IT industry, and a classification of cooperation models is proposed, which aims at explicating and simplifying managerial decision-making with regard to choosing an appropriate form of university-industry cooperation The paper uses both secondary and primary sources of information. For the first part of the study, in-depth interviews were conducted among managers of academic engagement programs between MNEs operating in the IT industry and Russian universities. Secondary data is used to sort existing practices according to the proposed categorization of university-industry forms of cooperation. Finally, the case of Dell EMC academic engagement in Russia is described to support the proposed categorization and depict directions of future studies. As a result, the benefits of academic engagement were aligned with the challenges, which MNEs face as they design their R&D strategies and consider between localization and internationalization. A categorization of university-industry cooperation models has been established as forms of such partnerships were distinguished and described. The research is exploring important challenges for MNEs in a very specific and understudied aspect of university-industry cooperation. The results of the paper may be used both by other researchers and practitioners, who are interested in the Russian market, or are choosing among different forms of collaboration with universities