IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v54y2025i6s0048733325000708.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bridging the ivory tower and industry: How university science parks promote university-industry collaboration?

Author

Listed:
  • Kang, Yankun
  • Liu, Ruiming
  • Yang, Bingyan

Abstract

We investigate the impact of university science parks (USPs)—platforms designed to foster university-industry (UI) connections, specifically focusing on their role in UI patent collaboration. Utilizing the introduction of USPs in China between 2006 and 2016, we find that they are associated with a notable 50.8 % increase in UI collaborative patents, equivalent to approximately 1.8 additional patents per year. We further proposed that USPs can facilitate UI collaboration through three mechanisms—spatial proximity, intermediary services, and knowledge complementarity—and provided corresponding empirical evidence to support these claims. Furthermore, measured by the patent citations, we also find that these parks significantly enhance the quality of UI collaborations. These results underscore the pivotal role of USPs as facilitators of interaction between academic institutions and industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Kang, Yankun & Liu, Ruiming & Yang, Bingyan, 2025. "Bridging the ivory tower and industry: How university science parks promote university-industry collaboration?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:54:y:2025:i:6:s0048733325000708
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2025.105241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733325000708
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105241?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    University science park; University-industry collaboration; Patents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:54:y:2025:i:6:s0048733325000708. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.