Firms’ rationales for interaction with research universities and the principles for public co-funding

Abstract

R&D managers at 50 firms who have formal relations with two research universities in Stockholm are interviewed about their rationales for collaboration. Drawing on this material, a distinctive typology of rationales for establishing cooperative relations is presented. While the typology demonstrates a considerable breadth of interaction rationales, rationales related to innovation, in terms of invented or improved products or processes, are found to be the main drivers for interaction. Based on this framework, we analyse which rationales for interaction are consistent with public rationales for supporting university-industry relationships. Public co-funding that allow firms to influence (part of) the academic agenda is identified as a particularly interesting case that requires further theoretical attention.

Working with distant researchers—Distance and content in university–industry interaction

“…There is also strong consent that collaboration patterns as well as measurable benefits from university-industry linkages are related to firm characteristics such as size, R&D-intensity, sector and innovation search profiles (Mohnen & Hoareau, 2003;Bercovitz & Feldman, 2007;Lööf & Broström, 2008). Beyond these firm-level investigations, a number of studies have emphasised that a single firm may benefit from interaction with universities in many different ways, depending on the scope and the rationale of a particular relationship (Broström, 2008). In the path-breaking contributions of Klevorick et al (1995), Cohen et al (2002) and Fontana et al (2006), academic research is found to contribute to two types of basic objectivesgeneration of new ideas or for innovation completion -to similar extent.…”

Caracterización de prácticas de capacidad de innovación en organizaciones: Revisión literaria y diagnóstico en unidades de servicios

“…Como se identificó en el primer determinante, la formación y actualización de los colaboradores genera cambios en los paradigmas de los equipos de trabajo ante la posible solución de los problemas, mejora continua y prevención de errores. Esta interacción entre organizaciones genera nuevos resultados a partir del intercambio de conocimiento (Broström, 2012). …”

“…Fuente: Autores La capacidad de innovación se puede desarrollar trabajando en conjunto con las universidades y centros de investigación (Broström, 2012), así como con organizaciones que presentan afinidades e intereses similares, "Comunidades de práctica"-(Brown & Duguid, 1991).…”

The Role of Research Orientation for Attracting Competitive Research Funding

“…Broström (2011) finds in a study on firms collaborating with major Swedish universities that these firms work with university researchers in order to access academic networks and to strengthen skills of their employees, i.e. increasing absorptive capacity for knowledge spillovers in general, not only from science.…”

“…In Germany "direct project funding" by the Federal Government, for instance, has been to an increasing extent directed at promoting industry-science consortia, while grants given to pure firm research consortia or pure science consortia did not grow at comparable rates (Czarnitzki et al 2008). Results from an interview-based study by Broström (2011) even suggest public co-funding of collaborative research between university and industry should be awarded on the merits of applicationoriented problem solving rather than fundamental research alone as it increases incentives in the business sector to participate in such programs. This claim, however, stands in stark contrast the rationale behind public funding of R&D that is usually based on the assertion that basic research is associated with positive spillover effects to the entire economy (see Feldman and Kelley 2006 for an overview).…”