Throughout the work, the goal was to develop the physical layer of a quantum network stack. The layer of the network stack connected to the physical layer is the link layer. For entanglement-based quantum networks, we demonstrated the successful operation of a link layer and a physical layer. The physical layer’s entanglement generation procedure—implemented here using two NV center-based quantum network nodes—is abstracted by the link layer into a robust platform-independent service that can be utilized to run quantum networking applications. Other quantum network platforms using the approaches provided here (which are not unique to our diamond devices) will accelerate the development of large-scale and heterogeneous quantum networks. ---------------- A vision is developed on how successful university-industry collaborations can be established in the field of quantum technology development. By looking at the stakeholders, purpose and type of collaboration, and influencing factors, a three-step model is developed to move from awareness to acceptance to collaboration. By overcoming the existing barriers, university-industry collaborations can be successfully realized.