A pla lace-based perspective to research-in industry ry in - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A pla lace-based perspective to research-in industry ry in interactions: who are the key research partners for lo local l busin inesses ? Federica Rossi, Birkbeck, University of London

Panel 1: Innovative Place-Based Triple Helix Approaches: Connecting Research and Innovation Players with Economic Growth

Innovative Place-Based Triple Helix Approaches for Regional Development through Smart Specialisation Strategies 28-29 June, 2019 St Mary’s University, Waldegrave Suite, UK

Public research actors as catalysts for growth

• Particularly as we attempt to develop place based policies involving the public

research system, it is paramount to understand who are the public research actors that local companies collaborate with, and how

• Probably due to data availability issues, the literature on university-industry

interactions, including in a Triple Helix perspective:

• tends to focus predominantly on the universities’ side of the relationship
• when it focuses on the industry side, mostly relies on company-level rather

that individual level data

• neglects other public research organisations

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Outline

• To better implement place-based policies, it is crucial to
• understand which research players local industry interacts with, why, and how
• focus on the whole set of research actors, not just universities
• Some findings from my recent research focusing on regional companies and

industry inventors, and their relationships with universities, as well as on the role

• f other actors in the public research system

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Which research partners does local industry interact with?

• Two original surveys of companies and company-based inventors in Piemonte, Italy
• UIPIE survey: 1,052 companies
• PIEMINV: 2,945 inventors employed in industry (holding at least one patent filed at the

European Patent Office between 1998 and 2005), about 1600 usable responses

• Some findings in line with previous research:
• companies rely on open science channels (scientific publications and conferences) more

than proprietary sources (licenses)

• the more educated the workforce the more companies can exploit academic knowledge
• larger and more R&D-intensive companies are more likely to interact with universities

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Not all university-industry knowledge transfer involves universities: a lot of it is based on direct personal interactions

• 17.5% of companies are involved in academic research collaborations:
• 7.9% exclusively through direct personal interactions with academics
• 9.9% formalize their interactions with the university institutions (alongside, possibly, direct

interactions with academics)

• Personal interactions with academics are particularly appealing to dynamic small and

medium size enterprises which probably find institutional channels too cumbersome: these companies are smaller and more likely to adopt open innovation strategies than those that use institutional channels

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• Similar results when we surveyed individual company inventors about their individual

interactions with universities

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Channels of Interaction Used – not important Used – very important Used Institutional research collaborations between your company and the university (department, faculty, university, technology transfer office), financed by the company 15.3% 12.8% 28.1% Institutional research collaborations between your company and the university, financed through public funds (regional, national or international) 14.4% 11.4% 25.8% Personal contracts between your company and individual university researchers 14.2% 11.6% 25.8%

• Effectiveness of collaboration types for achieving different objectives

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• Personal collaborations are particularly important because they contribute to the

production of valuable inventions

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Variables (significant ones only) Economic value of invention with highest contribution from university knowledge relative to most valuable invention in portfolio Type of collaboration

• Personal contracts (IV)

+

• Institutional contracts

Type of knowledge

• Theories

+

• Methods

+

• Applied
• Contact

Type of firm

• SMEs
• Large firms
• Technological capability

+ Technology dummies YES Observations 580

The social sciences have a key role to play in regional knowledge transfer

• Many interactions between companies and universities focus on providing

solutions to legal, logistic, marketing, management and organizational problems

• This is particularly so for interactions between companies and universities based

in the same region, while interactions between more distant universities are more likely to concern technological (R&D, testing) issues

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Both Regional and Non-regional university partners Only Non-regional university partners Both Regional and Non-regional university partners versus Only Regional university partners versus Only Regional university partners versus Only Non- regional university partners Variables (significant ones only) R&D and Test + R&D and Business Consultancy

• +

Only Test Only Business Consultancy

• +

Size + Constant

• Industry dummies

YES YES YES Observations 90 90 90

• This may depend on the fact that business problem-solving :
• requires direct interactions that allow the transfer of tacit knowledge
• builds upon detailed knowledge of the socioeconomic and legal-institutional context

in which the firm operates

• Instead, collaborations around R&D and testing activities
• involve more often codified and abstract forms of knowledge, the transmission of

which does not require direct interactions

• may involve very specific knowledge that does not exist in the region

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Collaborations with distant universities require appropriate networks

• Collaborations with distant universities:
• difficult (higher transaction costs), but often necessary when firms need to access

frontier scientific knowledge not available locally, often from top ranked departments

• Companies are often larger and tend to invest more, since technology-focused

projects are usually more expensive than those focused on the solution of business problems

• Different networks matter for local versus international collaborations

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• Interaction with Italian universities
• Interaction

with US universities

222

Interaction with European universities

• 57

10 6 1 42 1

• Education based personal networks (alumni effect) very important, but only for

regional and national universities

• Career based personal networks: mixed results, only partly relevant for very distant

(US) collaborations

• Working in a national or international MNE increases the probability of collaboration

with international universities (no effect for local uni).

• Only the organizational network of foreign MNEs is useful in order to reach more

distant locations

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(1) (2) (3) (3a) (3b) Variables (significant ones only) Regional University Other Italian University Foreign University European University US University MNE affiliation

• Employed by a Foreign MNE

+ + +

• Employed by an Italian MNE

+ + Career based network

• Worked outside Piedmont
• +
• Personal international network

Education based network

• Alumni effect

+ + Individual characteristics and education controls YES YES YES YES YES Company characteristics controls YES YES YES YES YES Selection equation YES YES YES YES YES Observations 644 612 587 582 579

Beyond universities: public research

• rganizations
• Public research organizations are important research performers in many

countries, including both emerging economies (e.g. Brazil, South Africa, India) and high and middle income economies (e.g. Germany, France, Spain, South Korea)

• Yet, they are under studied: evidence is that they PROs engage in knowledge

transfer but we know very little about their interactions with external stakeholders, including at local level, and the practices that they adopt do so.

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The UK system: many PROs but difficult to identify the sector’s boundaries

• Departmental PROs perform “responsive research” on topics directly mandated

by the government while Research Council PROs are more autonomous in setting their research priorities

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Number of PROs (including research and cultural institutes) Number of PROs (only research institutes) Departmental Research Bodies 76 28 Research Council Institutes 27 21 MRC units 34 34 Total 137 83

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5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Human Health & Well Being, disease control Environment and sustainability, including Marine Environment & Food and agriculture, animal health Physical Sciences Biological Sciences, Plants Space/ Earth Observation/ Aerospace National and Individual Security Built Environment, land use

• PROs by sector: specialized

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• PROs by region: unequally distributed

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 South East England East of England Greater London Scotland South West England East Midlands Northern Ireland Yorkshire and the Humber North West England West Midlands North East England Wales

• The PRO sector has shrunk in recent decades with numerous PROs being closed,

merged, or sold to the private sector

• Nonetheless the size of the sector is non-negligible: we can estimate the PRO sector

to be about one third of the size of the university sector both in terms of public funding and number of institutions

• While PROs’ knowledge transfer engagement (in terms of activities, staff, and

income) has increased over time, PROs’ income from knowledge transfer activities is about one tenth of universities’ income from the same activities, indicating scope for greater PRO engagement

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Distribution of PROs’ knowledge transfer activities

• Income from knowledge transfer (2012/13) is about 23% of the income from government
• funding. This is divided into:
• GBP 195 million from intellectual property licensing
• GBP 166 million from consulting activities
• GBP 133 million from the use of facilities and equipment and training
• A large share of PROs’ knowledge transfer income comes from IP licensing. This was even

higher in the past, but the share of income from IP licensing has begun to decline while

• ther forms of knowledge transfer have increased

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Evidence of success in research commercialization

• Number of PRO patent applications is much lower than for universities (322 versus 1,936),

but their probability of being granted is much higher (two-thirds versus less than half) and so is their income from licensing (GBP 195 million versus GBP 61 million)

• The average licensing income per granted patent is much higher for PSREs (GBP 570,175)

than for universities (GBP 64,143), although we do not have information about the distributions: it is possible that a small number of blockbuster patents account for the largest share of income, for either or both PSREs and universities

• The number of spin-outs doubled between 2008-09 and 2012-13, with PSREs owning

some equity in 93 percent of these cases

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• Patenting and spinout activities of PROs

Conclusions

• We need a more comprehensive definition of ‘research and innovation actors’ that

policies need to engage with – not just universities but also others: public research

• rganizations, private research actors, and mixed public private bodies
• We need to better understand and promote PROs’ knowledge transfer engagement
• Universities (and PROs) should enable academics to interact with industry whatever the

governance of the collaborations – direct personal interactions often fit companies’ needs better and are more productive than those that are formalized through the involvement of the university institutions

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• Alumni relationships are very important to nurture local business collaborations, and

some more distant ones. However, relationships with very distant universities are facilitated by business links. It might be relevant to attract in the region foreign MNEs as bridging organizations able to link regional inventors to most distant and advanced knowledge sources

• Universities should exploit their business problem-solving competences to support the

needs of local businesses and to strengthen intra- regional collaborations. However, they should not forget that their key source of competitive advantage resides in the development of advanced, cutting edge theories and methods rather than in the pursuit

• f very applied knowledge, which could also be provided by other actors in the economy

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References

• Bodas Freitas, I., Geuna, A., and F. Rossi (2013) Finding the right partners: institutional

and personal modes of governance of university-industry interaction, Research Policy, 42(1): 50-62

• Bodas Freitas, I., Rossi, F., Geuna, A. (2014) Collaboration objectives and the location of

the university partner: evidence from the Piedmont region in Italy, Papers in Regional Science, 93(S1): S203-S226

• Fassio, C., Geuna, A., Rossi, F. (2019) Which governance of university-industry

interactions increases the value of industrial inventions? Industrial and Corporate Change, dty058, https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dty058

• Fassio, C., Geuna, A., Rossi, F. (2019) International knowledge flows between industrial

inventors and universities: the role of multinational companies, Paper presented at DRUID 2019 conference

• Rossi, F., Athreye, S. (2019) Leveraging public research for innovation and growth – the

case of the United Kingdom, In Arundel, A., Athreye, S. and Wunsch-Vincent, S. ‘Harnessing Public Research for Innovation in the 21st Century – An international assessment of knowledge transfer policies’, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming

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