In this study, the relationship between the use of collaborative agreements and the firm's innovation output is examined. Firms may innovate using partnerships linked to a "science and technology-based" (STI) mode of learning, as well as partnerships linked to a "learning-by-doing, by-using and by-interacting-based' (DUI) mode of learning. Within this view, universities are important STI partners that provide flows of science and technology driven knowledge leading to innovation. A fixed-effects logit estimation is applied on an extensive panel of Spanish manufacturing and service firms to analyze the separate and combined impact of collaborative agreements associated to STI and/or DUI modes of learning, with a special emphasis on the role of partnerships with universities. Even though STI and DUI partnerships are both important for product and process innovations, the results demonstrate that different types of collaboration are related to different types of innovation. While product innovation benefits more from the combination of DUI and STI partnerships, process innovation is more closely related to DUI partnerships. Apart from that, collaborations with universities, in combination with DUI partners, leads to a higher likelihood of product innovation. In contrast, process innovations are less dependent on collaborations with universities than on collaborations with other STI partners.

We study the extent to which the characteristics of universities and technology transfer offices located within different regional contexts affect the transfer of scientific knowledge, both in the form of licensing and spin-off firm creation. By using data from Spain for the period 2005 to 2008, we show that technology transfer offices with more experienced and expert staff teams and universities with clearly established rules for creating academic startups and with higher patenting records are more likely to obtain better university technology transfer results (i.e., licensing and spin-off firm outcomes). Although the effects of R&D investment and venture capital available in the local region were not significant, the (subnational) regional context seemed to matter for explaining the variation in academic spin-off and licensing outcomes across universities.

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