The Impact of University–Industry Relationships on Firms’ Performance: A Meta-Regression Analysis

The University–Industry (U–I) relationship is a fundamental part of innovation systems. A wide spread of public resources has been given to promote this relationship and a large number of studies has evaluated the results. However, while innovation theory identifies this relationship as a positive instrument to increase firms’ performance, evaluation literature reports a wide range of findings. The lack of conclusiveness results in theory and evaluation literature motivates this meta-regression analysis (MRA), built on fifty-one micro-level studies published since 1995. After controlling for publication selection bias, sample, and study heterogeneities, our results show a small effect on firms’ performance. Specifically, the size of the effect is more significant for technical outcomes than economic ones. These findings have a lot of relevance for universities, firms, and policymakers for determining open-innovation strategies and public policies.