IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rif/wpaper/8.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Commercialization of academic research. A comparison between researchers in the U.S. and Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Nikulainen, Tuomo
  • Tahvanainen, Antti-Jussi

Abstract

This paper aims to identify factors that relate to scientists’ propensity to make commercially significant scientific discoveries (inventions) and to describe how these inventions are commercialized. Based on a large survey of academics active in different fields of science at U.S. universities, the paper benchmarks the top 20 universities against the rest, identifying the impact of different institutional settings. To highlight the institutional setting, the paper also compares these results to similar survey data from Finland, representing a small, highly educated European country. This comparison addresses the ‘European paradox’ in university technology commercialization, which is characterized by high investments in university research and disappointingly low levels of inventions and related commercialization activity. The results show that the likelihood of making commercially valuable scientific discoveries in the U.S. is driven by motivations related to the identification of commercial opportunities and working in interdisciplinary research environments. There are also significant differences between the various fields of science. In the top U.S. universities, the funding sources for scientists more likely to make inventions are more diversified and unique. The results for Finland are surprisingly similar, suggesting that the cause of the ‘European paradox’ seems to originate in the commercialization of inventions rather than their generation. When focusing on inventors who actively pursue commercial goals, both U.S. and Finnish inventors prefer licensing as the most popular way of taking scientific discoveries to the market. Consulting and entrepreneurship rank second and third, respectively. The countries differ with respect to both the inventors’ motivations to commercialize inventions and their reasons to refrain from it. In Finland, the motivations for not pursuing commercial opportunities are much more prominent than among U.S. scientists.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikulainen, Tuomo & Tahvanainen, Antti-Jussi, 2013. "Commercialization of academic research. A comparison between researchers in the U.S. and Finland," ETLA Working Papers 8, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:rif:wpaper:8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Working-Papers-8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank T. Rothaermel & Shanti D. Agung & Lin Jiang, 2007. "University entrepreneurship: a taxonomy of the literature," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 691-791, August.
    2. Anthony Arundel & Aldo Geuna, 2004. "Proximity and the use of public science by innovative European firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 559-580.
    3. S. Breschi & F. Lissoni & F. Montobbio, 2007. "The Scientific Productivity Of Academic Inventors: New Evidence From Italian Data," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 101-118.
    4. Tahvanainen, Antti-Jussi, 2009. "Finnish University Technology Transfer in a Whirl of Changes - a Brief Summary," Discussion Papers 1188, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    5. Segarra-Blasco, Agusti­ & Arauzo-Carod, Josep-Maria, 2008. "Sources of innovation and industry-university interaction: Evidence from Spanish firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1283-1295, September.
    6. Ajay Agrawal & Rebecca Henderson, 2002. "Putting Patents in Context: Exploring Knowledge Transfer from MIT," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 44-60, January.
    7. Bozeman, Barry, 2000. "Technology transfer and public policy: a review of research and theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 627-655, April.
    8. Tahvanainen, Antti-Jussi & Nikulainen, Tuomo, 2011. "Commercialization at Finnish Universities - Researchers Perspectives on the Motives and Challenges of Turning Science into Business," Discussion Papers 1234, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Foray, Dominique & Lissoni, Francesco, 2010. "University Research and Public–Private Interaction," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 275-314, Elsevier.
    2. Perkmann, Markus & King, Zella & Pavelin, Stephen, 2011. "Engaging excellence? Effects of faculty quality on university engagement with industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 539-552, May.
    3. Michael Sheriff & Moreno Muffatto, 2019. "University Spin-Offs: A New Framework Integrating Enablers, Stakeholders and Results," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(02), pages 1-18, April.
    4. Walsh, John P. & Huang, Hsini, 2014. "Local context, academic entrepreneurship and open science: Publication secrecy and commercial activity among Japanese and US scientists," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 245-260.
    5. Aldo Geuna & Alessandro Muscio, 2008. "The governance of University knowledge transfer," SPRU Working Paper Series 173, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Guido Buenstorf, 2006. "Is Academic Entrepreneurship Good or Bad for Science? Empirical Evidence from the Max Planck Society," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2006-17, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    7. Victoria Galan-Muros & Todd Davey, 2019. "The UBC ecosystem: putting together a comprehensive framework for university-business cooperation," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 1311-1346, August.
    8. Christoph Grimpe & Heide Fier, 2010. "Informal university technology transfer: a comparison between the United States and Germany," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 35(6), pages 637-650, December.
    9. Isabel Maria Bodas Freitas & Aldo Geuna & Federica Rossi, 2011. "University–Industry Interactions: The Unresolved Puzzle," Chapters, in: Cristiano Antonelli (ed.), Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Perkmann, Markus & Tartari, Valentina & McKelvey, Maureen & Autio, Erkko & Broström, Anders & D’Este, Pablo & Fini, Riccardo & Geuna, Aldo & Grimaldi, Rosa & Hughes, Alan & Krabel, Stefan & Kitson, Mi, 2013. "Academic engagement and commercialisation: A review of the literature on university–industry relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 423-442.
    11. Fini, Riccardo & Lacetera, Nicola & Shane, Scott, 2010. "Inside or outside the IP system? Business creation in academia," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1060-1069, October.
    12. Buenstorf, Guido & Schacht, Alexander, 2013. "We need to talk – or do we? Geographic distance and the commercialization of technologies from public research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 465-480.
    13. Dirk Czarnitzki & Christian Rammer & Andrew Toole, 2014. "University spin-offs and the “performance premium”," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 309-326, August.
    14. Kasia Zalewska-Kurek & Klaudia Egedova & Peter A. Th. M. Geurts & Hans E. Roosendaal, 2018. "Knowledge transfer activities of scientists in nanotechnology," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 139-158, February.
    15. Gallego, Jorge & Rubalcaba, Luis & Suárez, Cristina, 2013. "Knowledge for innovation in Europe: The role of external knowledge on firms' cooperation strategies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 2034-2041.
    16. Alessandro Muscio, 2010. "What drives the university use of technology transfer offices? Evidence from Italy," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 181-202, April.
    17. Aschhoff, Birgit & Grimpe, Christoph, 2014. "Contemporaneous peer effects, career age and the industry involvement of academics in biotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 367-381.
    18. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Massimo Colombo & Massimiliano Guerini & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra, 2014. "The impact of local and external university knowledge on the creation of knowledge-intensive firms: evidence from the Italian case," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 261-287, August.
    19. Van Looy, Bart & Landoni, Paolo & Callaert, Julie & van Pottelsberghe, Bruno & Sapsalis, Eleftherios & Debackere, Koenraad, 2011. "Entrepreneurial effectiveness of European universities: An empirical assessment of antecedents and trade-offs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 553-564, May.
    20. Charlotte Schlump & Thomas Brenner, 2013. "Firm's cooperation activities: The relevance of public research, proximity and personal ties - A study of technology-oriented firms in East Germany," Working Papers on Innovation and Space 2013-06, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    academic inventions; innovation; commercialization of research; academic entrepreneurship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rif:wpaper:8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Kaija Hyvönen-Rajecki). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/etlaafi.html .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.