Collaborative innovation is an unavoidable need for the small and medium enterprises (SME) both in terms of economic scale and technological knowledge. Risks and the innovation power are analyzed for the wealth of collaboration. This paper aims to present the synergy index as a multiplier of the innovation power of research partners to construct a successful collaboration. The proposed index can be used with different number of companies in collaboration cluster and the synergy maximization is guaranteed by using a new particle swarm algorithm, Foraging Search. This paper will give the formulation and criteria of the synergy index in detail. A sample synergy index application for the Turkish SMEs will clarify the steps to follow.