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What drives university-industry collaboration? Research excellence or firm collaboration strategy?

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  • Atta-Owusu, Kwadwo
  • Fitjar, Rune Dahl
  • Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés

Abstract

Research and innovation policy aims to boost research output and university-industry collaboration (UIC) in part to allow firms access to leading scientific knowledge. As part of their mission, universities in many countries are expected to contribute to innovation in their regions. However, the relationship between research output and UIC is unclear: research-intensive universities can produce frontier research, which is attractive to firms, but may simultaneously suffer from a gap between the research produced and the needs of local firms, as well as mission overload. This may hinder local firms’ ability to cooperate with universities altogether or force them to look beyond the region for other suitable universities to interact with. This paper investigates the relationship between the research output of local universities and firms’ participation in UICs across different geographical scales. It uses Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data for Norwegian firms and Scopus data on Norwegian universities’ research output across various disciplines. The results demonstrate that local university research intensity and quality are negatively associated with firm participation in UICs at the local level. Firm characteristics, in particular the firm's general strategy towards cooperation and its geography, turn out to be much more important than university characteristics in explaining UICs. Notably, firms’ cooperation with other external partners at the same scale is a strong predictor of UICs.

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  • Atta-Owusu, Kwadwo & Fitjar, Rune Dahl & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2021. "What drives university-industry collaboration? Research excellence or firm collaboration strategy?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112482, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:112482
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    5. Xiaojie Yao & Yuan Hu & Huaping Gong & Dongyou Chen, 2021. "Characteristics and Evolution of China’s Industry–University–Research Collaboration to Promote the Sustainable Development: Based on Policy Text Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-18, November.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firms; Norway; Research; Universities; University-industry collaboration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

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