It is like inventing a design Lego toy in which the bricks are IPs. We are still quite far away from being able to do it. We need a methodology to wrap around the IPs so they can be mixed and matched. We need to devise a way to assemble fully designed IPs, behaviorally described IPs, RTL netlists IPs, and software components into a coherent system. For example Cadence is working on the foundation of a system design methodology and tools that would make IP sharing possible.
Efforts are underway in universities as well.
Oh yes, I can say that all my work has been done in conjunction with industry. Several other colleagues at Berkeley, Carnegie-Mellon, MIT, and Stanford are collaborating with industry to lay the foundations of the future of electronics. However, the extent of collaborative work could and should be extended to cover other universities and other research groups. In the United States the collaboration between universities and industry has had a long history of success. In Europe, it's quite difficult to get universities and industry to work together for a number of structural and cultural reasons.