How can relevance for both industry and academia be achieved in collaborative research project? Despite the vast amount of literature on collaborative research, there is still a lack of empirically grounded studies on their practical use. We have investigated how the co-creation of knowledge was carried out in six collaborative projects, what was considered to be relevant results and what aspects that were found critical during the different phases of a collaborative research project. We found that joint activities during the initial phases, together with joint implementation of development initiates, was found most critical for relevance.