Bridging science and technology through academic–industry partnerships

Partnerships that foster the translation of scientific advances emerging from academic research organizations into commercialized products at private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, an agency that funds partnerships between universities and private companies. We assess the effect on participating firms’ innovative performance, comparing patent count, publication count and proportion of cross-institutional publications between funded and unfunded firms. Specifically, we measure the impact on each of these variables based on three dimensions – small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), younger firms, and size of the collaboration firms participated in – to establish boundary conditions. Our results suggest that receiving funding affects firms’ innovative behavior differently depending on the type of firm, where (1) peer-reviewed publications increased significantly more for SMEs and larger projects, (2) granted patents increased significantly up to 4 years after funding for young firms and those in larger projects, and (3) proportion of cross-institutional publications increased significantly more 3 years after funding for all three sample specifications.