For university-business cooperation (UBC) to prosper, academics must be sufficiently motivated to undertake different collaborative activities and engage with businesses in various ways. Our understanding of the motivations that underpin academic engagement has improved, yet the inherent complexity and constellations of a multitude of relevant motivations remain unexplored. This research relies on a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, informed by self-determination theory, to identify and explain the constellations of motivations that encourage extensive academic engagement with business. The configurations of motivations reflect ribbon, gold, and puzzle forms, with the novel addition of prosocial motivations. Four different constellations of motivations emerge, each of which explains academic engagement in UBC: impact, inspiration, promotion, and distinction. The resulting theoretical and managerial contributions provide foundations for further research, by clarifying motivations as jointly driving academic engagement with business and emphasising the intrinsic rather than extrinsic nature of these motivations.