Who instigates university–industry collaborations

Authors: Rajeev K Goel Devrim GöktepeHultén Christoph Grimpe

Publish Date: 2016/08/23

Volume: 48, Issue: 3, Pages: 503-524

PDF Link

Abstract

While evidence on the causes and effects of university–industry interaction is abundant little is known about how and particularly by whom such interaction is instigated in the first place and subsequently managed In this paper we investigate which mode of collaboration joint research contract research consulting inlicensing or informal contacts is more likely to be initiated and managed by firm employees versus by university scientists Moreover we are interested in the differences between small and large firms to see whether initiation and management are affected by firm size Using a sample of 833 German manufacturing firms our results indicate that university scientists typically start collaborations with industry while firm employees would take over the management of projects Results vary markedly between small and large firms with university scientists having somewhat higher difficulties initiating collaborations with large firms than with small firms

Keywords: