Search

The offset agreement (OA) of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) is a demand-side policy aiming to improve innovative capacities. However, it may be constrained by companies' absorptive capacities, relationship features, and sectoral specificities. This study examines these issues in a small but representative sample of domestic beneficiary firms from the FAB's OA. The model in the study by Zahra and George, along with contingent factors such as power relationship and social integration mechanisms, inspired the design of the research tools. The results point to similar and high firms' absorptive capacities, regardless of the origins of capital. However, results show distinct benefit perceptions given by contingent factors, companies' strategies, and sectoral specificities, which may denote distinct possibilities on cumulativeness and appropriability from technology transfer. We expect that these findings may improve the planning, monitoring, evaluation, and adjustments of this demand-side policy, attracting attention to new studies on the theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, research has begun to examine the concept of the regional policy mix and its implications for regional innovation. While this has highlighted the role of interactions between multilevel policy instruments and the potential for duplication and synergies, it has tended to underplay the contribution of policy actors to managing such policy mix processes. This paper seeks to add to this literature by introducing the concept of boundary work, viewing it as a form of agency practice seeking to create, maintain, and disrupt instruments within the policy mix. Through a case study of digital technology diffusion instruments in Wales (UK), this paper examines the actors, practices, and effects of boundary work in the regional policy mix. The findings show that boundary work can help manage tensions in the policy mix through anticipatory practices but that complexity and uncertainty in the regional innovation policy mix present ongoing challenges to policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting growth in patent activity was an important stated goal of China's Medium- and Long-Term Plan for Science and Technology Development (2006–20) , and it was a successful one. By the end of this ambitious blueprint, China had witnessed enormous growth in the number of granted patents, especially those granted to public universities. This vital role played by universities in technology innovation justifies further research on the role of academia with respect to the development of technology. However, most studies on patenting by Chinese universities are limited in terms of research scale and context, and patent performance is seldom investigated in great detail. This study first presents an overall analysis of the utility patents granted to Chinese public universities (not utility model patents). Then, we compare the patent performance of two elite university groups: Project 985 universities in China and member institutions of the Association of American Universities (AAU) in the USA. Our results show that Chinese universities account for a high proportion of the total patents granted in China, and the number of patents granted to universities has grown rapidly in recent decades, making them a very substantial contributor to China's innovation system. However, the value of patents did not improve as their counts surged. Compared to AAU universities, the technological and economic value of patents held by Project 985 universities is considerably lower, even for the top-patenting universities in China. These findings extend our understanding of technological innovation activity in China's academic landscape and might inspire future policies toward patent quality and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragmentation of the literature on intermediaries between the university and industry has led to a disorganised and confused theoretical landscape. This research addresses this gap in the literature by proposing an analytical tool that can be used as guidance. For this purpose, this work provides a taxonomy of these intermediaries and classifies them into five different classes. To this end, we review 125 studies on university–industry cooperation (UIC) intermediaries. In addition to the general and innovation-related information, we extracted specific data related to the relevant UIC intermediaries from each article, i.e. the type(s) of intermediary addressed and its identified functions. This taxonomy is based on twenty-two functions identified in the UIC intermediary literature and thirteen UIC intermediary types. The five proposed classes of intermediaries are specialised in five different roles. This integrative background can be applied in future research and in the definition of policy-based guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A striving for research excellence and the implementation of third mission activities in the form of technology transfer have become standard practices at modern higher education institutions. The recent call for universities to include social innovation in their third mission and the apparent lack of involvement of universities in this area indicate that social innovation is not yet perceived as a legitimate activity by the academic community. We examine why this is the case and disentangle the legitimation journey of social innovation in research-intensive environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) are biopharmaceuticals prescribed in oncology, rheumatology, and for other chronic and autoimmune diseases. Over the last decade, the demand for MAbs grew significantly in developing countries like Brazil, concomitant to the restructuring of the global biopharmaceutical industry, opening windows of opportunities for catching-up economies. This paper aims to analyze the capacity of a public policy, the so-called Production Development Partnership Program (PDPP), to encourage the generation of national capabilities to the local biopharmaceutical industry and technological upgrading in the biopharmaceutical sector in Brazil. It is a case study supported by qualitative data from twenty-three interviews. By focusing on technology transfer processes rather than on more complex strategies of technological learning and upgrading in domestic agents, the impact of PDPP has been marginal. We draw insights from this empirical appraisal to outline some lessons and challenges involved in the implementation of technology-upgrading policies in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University–industry relationships have been central in technology and management innovation literature for decades. Success has been one of the most relevant topics in this field, driving a high proportion of this research. Our objective is to analyze this literature. Based on a framework of the motivations and expected benefits of the partners, classifying them into six categories (technological, strategic, financial, educational, political and epistemological), we have carried out a bibliographic coupling analysis to determine the topic's knowledge structure. We show how these themes have evolved, with some remaining central during the entire timeframe and others gaining academics' attention in recent years. We offer a research schedule and a dynamic, interpretative model that classifies and organizes the motivations of success for university–industry collaboration. This analysis can help in the formulation and implementation of public and private programs that aim to promote cooperation between firms and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the making of university and industry research collaboration from the perspective of matching theory. Our analysis, based on an original survey in Japan, aims at identifying the mechanism of matching. The major findings are as follows. There is significant evidence for positive assortative matching at the project level: a researcher with better seeds or better needs gives a higher value to the partner's research capability and the goodness-of-fit between the project and the partner's capability in selecting its partner. The projects with the partners selected for research capability and goodness-of-fit are associated with high university and industry research collaboration performance. Furthermore, own contact is most used for positive assortative matching. These results indicate the importance of deep field knowledge and tacit knowledge of the researcher in the search process. These findings suggest that technology transfer policy would need to pay significant attention to the contribution of the decentralized matching process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International technology transfer is a determinant of a country's national revenue and economic growth. Technology exported through international technology transfer can be the factor that gives a country a competitive edge. Therefore, investigation of international technology transfer has become essential. With the role of universities in innovation changing, academic patents have increased significantly over the past 10 years. Thus, this study used academic patents involved in international technology transfer as a basis for analysis and attempted to identify technological hotspots through a technological structure network analysis. The results indicated that key technologies in academic patent–based international technology transfer networks were mainly concentrated on measurement, nanotechnology, medical technology, biotechnology, and electric digital data processing. An academic patent technological hotspot network model was established to serve as a reference for academic technology transfers as well as for governments in their promotion of emerging technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective is to study Canada's patenting activity over time in aggregate terms by destination country, by assignee and destination country, and by diversification by country of destination. We collect bibliographic patent data from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We identify 19,957 matched Canada–US patents, 34,032 Canada-only patents, and 43,656 US-only patents from 1980 to 2014. Telecommunications dominates in terms of International Patent Classification technologies for US-only and Canada–US patents. At the firm level, the greatest number of matched Canada–US patents were granted in the field of telecommunications, at the university level in pharmaceuticals, at the government level in control and instrumentation technology, and at the individual level in civil engineering. We use entropy to quantify technological diversification and find that diversification indices decline over time for Canada and the USA; however, all US indices decline at a faster rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how institutional changes facilitate university-centric interactions from the Triple Helix model of innovation perspective. The Triple Helix research framework consists of three cyclical dimensions, namely government institutional changes, the roles, missions, and interactions of universities, and university-centric networks. By developing a triangulation method, the qualitative dataset of the Taiwanese institutional changes includes science and technology, educational, and industrial policies; the quantitative dataset (1986–2015) collects the patents of Taiwanese universities via the US Patent and Trademark Office database. The results reveal that integrated policies systemically facilitate institutional changes that drive the transition of university's roles and missions, while the university-centric networks have transformed from isolated to loosely-coupled and ultimately, to densely interactive networks. This article concludes that government institutional changes have effectively transformed the roles and interactions of universities with other actors towards entrepreneurial universities, in turn, have facilitated a more interactive Triple Helix model of innovation in Taiwan. Some policy implications are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of commercially-oriented research and development (R&D) competence and technology commercialisation (TC) policies in public research organisations (PROs) on R&D efficiency of companies when they receive technology transfer from PROs. This study especially uses three-stage data envelopment analysis in order to control the companies' absorptive capacity and innovation hurdles that affect the efficiency. The results show that companies that receive technology transfer from PROs that have good alignment between commercially-oriented R&D competence and TC policies have higher R&D efficiency than companies that do not. On the other hand, the misalignment between PROs' commercially-oriented R&D competence and TC policies can have negative effects on R&D efficiency of companies that receive technology transfer. Consequently, this study discloses that the alignment between technology transferor's commercially-oriented R&D competence and TC policies is critical for improving the R&D efficiency of companies when the companies acquire technologies from external organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University–industry R&D collaboration is an important means to improve innovation efficiency; many governments have issued policies to promote it. The most frequent policy instruments implemented by policy-makers to foster firms' innovation are subsidies and tax incentives. The article elaborated on how subsidies and tax incentives influence the R&D collaboration efficiency through a panel dataset from 2009 to 2015 in China. The result showed that subsidies and tax incentives have a positive effect on collaboration efficiency, and the effect of subsidies on output is bigger than that of tax incentives. Taking the intensity of subsidy as a threshold variable, there is a significant single threshold effect on collaboration efficiency. However, there is no threshold effect when the intensity of the tax incentive used as the threshold variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of knowledge and technology transfer between academia and the industry has received increasing attention in the analysis of innovation. This article aims to explore the scientific literature concerning knowledge transport mechanisms and describe how the topic was organized by previous studies and terminologies applied. A systematic review was conducted in which the content of recent contributions best fitting these intensions was analysed. The characteristics of knowledge, individuals, organizations, and disciplines were found to be the main determinants in the adoption of transfer mechanisms. These were classified in terms of formalization, relational involvement, direction, and time. On the revealed multi-dimensionality of knowledge transfer and complementarity between transfer activities we framed a new taxonomy distinguishing between channels and processes. Future research may deepen these factors, such as the economic aspects driving the adoption of transfer mechanisms informing decisions on the funding of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a long-term view on the sources of knowledge flow between developed and developing nations. It relies on patent data to explore three potential sources: R&D collaboration, technology sourcing, and technology transfer. All three sources provide a very consistent message. First, knowledge flows from East Asia, particularly China, are occurring more frequently. Second, knowledge flows are increasingly concentrated in information and communication technologies. Third, the USA and Canada had traditionally larger patenting activity with Asia than Europe, but the share of activity between Europe and Asia has been increasing in recent years. Larger patenting activity between the USA and Canada and Asia implies that North America is more likely to benefit from the reverse knowledge flows than Europe as China progresses toward becoming a technological leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the interrelationship among technology transfer mechanisms using data specific to the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). An overview of the history of NIST and US policies that emphasize the economic importance of technology transfer are discussed. The empirical analysis focuses on NIST investments in research and development (R&D) and the cascading impact of those investments on new inventions disclosed, new patent applications, new patents issued and new patent licenses; and accounting for the effects of R&D on these three investments, an overall estimate of the R&D elasticity of new patent licenses is calculated to be 0.7976. The article concludes with a policy-focused summary of the implications of the empirical findings, and a suggested road map for future research related to technology transfer from US federal laboratories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether patents assigned to different types of organizations—firms, universities, and government research agencies—vary with regards to their effect on subsequent technological change. We find the organization type to which a patent is assigned to have significant and robust effects on the number of times a patent is cited and its generality. More precisely, we find that university patents are cited more often than corporate patents and that both university and government patents are more general than corporate ones. Additionally, university and governments patents are more likely than corporate patents to be both highly cited and highly general. The finding that university patents have a particularly deep and wide impact on subsequent technological change suggests that policies that attempt to use universities as engines for advancing technological innovation may hold promise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to shed light on the decision-making process at university technology transfer offices and show that the last steps in the process of international patent extension, when costs step up, tend to be only taken conditional on the existence of a licensing agreement. This information has so far been underexploited by policymakers and innovation scholars in search of innovation indicators. We argue that the number of international patent families filed by a university can be used as a rough indicator of technology transfer activity mediated through patents, especially in the context of tight public university budgets and national patent systems with fee reductions for universities. To support our argument, we review qualitative information from interviews at technology transfer offices, regulations, and internal statutes from a selection of Spanish universities and present a statistical analysis of the relation between patent internationalisation and licensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian government plans to lift the country's agriculture and food productions and aims to become the biggest global supplier of healthy, high-quality, and ecologically 'clean' foods. Although innovative activities in the field have been rising over the last decade, the intensity still remains far below both other Russian economic activities as well as other competitor nations. Policymakers focus on Russia's Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) as a channel to transfer new technologies to agricultural and food producers. As demand for new technologies is low, public funds are invested into RTOs to increase the quality of their basic research activities. Instead of converting these additional funds into better technology transfer, agricultural RTOs specialize in government-funded basic research and reduce further their role as applied research organizations. Thereby, RTOs do not seek to increase their competitive position but instead maximize their benefits from public support. This article questions the leverage effect that public support measures have for technology transfer activities in the present case, and suggests that a more holistic approach including both supply and demand is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a while, universities have been perceived by academics and policymakers as potential engines of regional economic development. One specific field of analysis in this regard involves the role of academia in shaping regional attractiveness for knowledge-intensive investments. Nonetheless, there are scant approaches dealing with these issues in developing countries. The goal of this article is to address the attraction effects exerted by high-quality universities on the location of investments in knowledge-intensive activities at the level of cities and microregions, drawing from the case of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Two-stage Heckman models are applied. Findings suggest weak effects associated with top-tier universities in defining whether a given location receives productive investments or not, but these gravitational impacts are absent in the definition of investment levels. These results indicate weak connections between academic research and agglomeration trends around specific locations in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review establishes what is currently known and, more importantly, what is not known about knowledge transfer (KT) between UK universities and industries. The review focuses on four central measures related to university–industry (U–I) collaboration for KT that have been previously identified in the literature: motivations; activities; barriers; and outcomes. Different rationales underpin existing studies and we frame these using two perspectives: the sociopolitical perspective and the contextual perspective. To date studies with a sociopolitical perspective have largely focused upon ‘motivations’ to engage in U–I collaboration but largely from academics’ perspectives and tangible activities and outcomes have been the foci of the contextual perspective on KT but these have rarely been sector specific. We discuss these and other major findings in terms of policy implications for future research funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do university project teams in emerging economies develop and transfer technologies to industry? While conditions typical to emerging economies are likely to influence the process of research commercialization, this issue is under-explored in literature. We address this gap through a comparative case analysis of two high impact commercialization projects at two Indian universities. Our study indicates that university project teams engage in three types of search behavior-- science exploration, technological exploration, and supplier search that influence two types of novelty--technological and contextual. The social impact of these two types of novelty is mediated by the extent to which university-industry technology transfer methods are able to transmit tacit knowledge. Further, supplier search is influenced by the extent to which supplier's components are specific to the projects, while technology transfer methods are moderated by the extent to which university-industry partner knowledge domains were congruent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge to transform towards more sustainable societies requires action on multiple levels, including commercialisation of inventions created in universities. We examine intermediation in the pre-commercialisation phase of cleantech inventions developed at Aalto University, Finland, focusing on the activities of a university innovation intermediary, Aalto Centre for Entrepreneurship (ACE), and how it operationalises the sustainability aims of the university. The roles of ACE are discussed in the context of the university innovation ecosystem and through three cases of cleantech inventions. Surprisingly, we find that ACE does not include any ways to operationally integrate sustainability. The consideration of sustainability in commercialisation projects is case specific and fully dependent on other actors. As a result we propose people- and processoriented alternatives of how sustainability could be integrated into university innovation support functions. We also propose that innovation ecosystems should be broadened to include public actors for the benefits of co-creating for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many European countries have followed the American example by changing the intellectual property laws governing university technology transfer from university inventorship to university ownership. The Scandinavian countries have chosen different paths as Denmark and Norway changed their laws in favor of university ownership, while Sweden retained its university inventor laws. This longitudinal study shows increasing technology transfer organization (TTO) capacity in all three countries regardless of change in intellectual property rights (IPR) framework or not. Danish and Norwegian TTOs increased their use of the license commercialization strategy, with variations at the TTO level, while the Swedish universities TTOs have maintained their use of the spin-off commercialization strategy. The relative use of the two commercialization strategies, licensing and spin-offs, is indirectly influenced by the IPR framework, and more directly by the designs of the policy intent of the university technology transfer system, the government funding system, the TTOs access to business development resources and competence, and monitoring of the university TTOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 30 years, university patenting has grown dramatically as a result of the US Bayh-Dole Act (1980) and efforts among universities to encourage faculty to pursue intellectual property. Recent reviews of the literature show that university technology transfer is primarily conceptualized in terms a relatively linear process of disclosure, patenting, and licensing. While this is the general pattern for university patenting, many faculty inventions are also patented outside the university. Using data from a national survey of academic patenters, this paper estimates probit and negative binomial regression models to assess individual and organizational factors that contribute to patenting external to the traditional technology transfer process among university scientists. Findings indicate that external patenting is a function of the science, scientist's training, and the lack of a department culture of encouraging patenting via technology transfer offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an empirical perspective and using some historical elements, we speculate about the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the information and communications technology paradigm in the context of production fragmentation and global value chains and the challenges they impose on learning. We use an evolutionary economics framework to understand the importance of 'learning' in a competitive economy where firms that absorb knowledge increase their opportunities to innovate and to obtain larger market shares. Exploring data from Brazil and South Korea we find similarities in both countries regarding the intellectual property (IP) balance of payments: both have an IP balance of payments deficit. However, data from national IPRs offices shows that residents in South Korea are more apt to generate knowledge than residents in Brazil, which can be attributed to the difference in importance given by these countries to their industrial policies and the way both have integrated global value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of university-business cooperation (UBC) in Finland in the context of the University Reform Act of 2009, drawing on the experience of four universities: Aalto University, University of Jyväskylä, University of Turku, and Lappeenranta University of Technology. Six UBC dimensions are examined: institutional context, stakeholders, motivations, facilitators/inhibitors, benefits, and drawbacks. We find that UBC, while a relatively recent process, is growing fast in dynamic local innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. The University Act of 2009 had an uneven effect on the six UBC dimensions, with the most visible impact being manifested on motivations. Aalto University's leading position in UBC and strong capacity to raise public and private funding has a dual effect: while being a major achievement, it also tends to polarize the Finnish universities financially, through a Matthew effect that may slow down UBC development in other universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spin-offs are an important aspect of the process of technology transfer from academia to the business sector. A key issue in the study of the spin-off formation process is the influence of the parent research organization on the profile of the spin-offs that are created. Following this direction, our study seeks to analyze how the previous academic trajectory of the founding team affects the business model and performance of academic spin-offs. We performed our analysis drawing on a resource-based view and a business model perspective. Our findings show that the spin-offs inherit their initial resource base from the academic environment and that the business model adopted by these companies is influenced by their initial resource base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a knowledge economy universities are expected to play a more active role in the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. The effectiveness of universities in playing this role is highly dependent on the country-specific institutional context and on the regional framework. Despite the abundant literature on technology transfer by universities, there is still room for a better understanding of how these specificities impact on the ability of universities to engage in effective interactions with industry and how policy-makers may favor these interactions. The main aim of this special section is to fill this gap by providing empirical analysis referring to an array of developed and emerging countries (Brazil, Italy, Finland, Sweden, and Thailand) which are trying to increase the ability of the university system to interact with industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have amended legislation and introduced policies to stimulate universities to trans- fer their knowledge to society. The effects of these policies on scientists are relatively unexplored. We employ principal-agent theory to increase our understanding of the relationship between im- pact policies and scientific practice. Our methodology includes the analysis of policy documents and of data gathered in focus groups. We conclude that there is a gap between policy on the one hand and how scientists perceive it on the other. Policy documents put forward a broad notion of impact, but scientists perceive them as focusing too narrowly on commercial impacts. Scientists are further puzzled by how societal impact is evaluated and organised, and their perceptions frame their behaviour. Our policy recommendations focus on improving the interaction between interme- diaries, such as universities and research councils, and scientists so as to include the latter's per- spective in policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much previous research has explored university-industry technology transfer, but few researchers have examined the more comprehensive technology transfer process from faculty to firm. This paper focuses on faculty's decisions on invention disclosure and selection of the mode of com- mercialization, and it aims to fill this gap through developing game models involving faculty, university, and firm. The results reveal a series of specific conditions for each commercialization mode, indicating that faculty's share of licensing revenue and non-economic benefit have a positive impact on invention disclosure and the amount of effort expended by faculty, while increasing licensing price, decreasing the invention disclosure rate, and not necessarily increasing the investment by the firm. The empirical evidence supports our theory and renders a practical interpretation in the context of the 35 Chinese universities with the most patent applications. Finally, this paper provides new insights for faculty, university, and firm, as well as implications for policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the use of university technology transfer reporting standards developed under the aegis of the US-based Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) in Canada. Given the importance to policy-makers internationally of improving the contributions of universities in transferring technology to industry, these indicators are regarded as critical to informing the policy debate. We analyze federal science and technology policy and identify how these metrics have influenced the framing of policy problems and alternatives. Next, a micro-level analysis of Canada's largest research university unveils several major weaknesses of the survey. Our study points to the need for a more critical use of the AUTM licensing data in the Canadian policy debate, and provides recommendations on the future development of these indicators and their use in public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the importance of early-career characteristics of academic inventors and how they affect their patenting activity. Using a novel dataset on 555 UK academic inventors, we find that the quality of the first invention is the best predictor for subsequent participation in the patenting process. We further find evidence for a positive training effect whereby researchers who were trained at universities that had already established commercialisation units patent more. In addition, researchers who gained their first patenting experience in industry are able to benefit from stronger knowledge flows and receive more citations than their purely academic peers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nations, universities, and regional governments promote the dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge. They focus on knowledge-based innovations and the university’s economic function in terms of technology transfer, intellectual property, university–industry–government relations etc. Faculties other than engineering or applied sciences, however, may not be able to recognize opportunities in this ‘linear model’ of technology transfer. We elaborate a non-market perspective on the third mission in terms of disclosure of the knowledge and areas of expertise available for disclosure to other audiences at a provincial university. The use of information and communications technologies can enhance communication between actors on the supply and demand sides. Using an idea developed in the context of the Dutch science shops, university staff were questioned about keywords and areas of expertise with the specific purpose of disclosing this information to audiences other than academic colleagues. The results were brought online in a hyperlink index structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The creation of academic spin-offs, which are new ventures exploiting knowledge and technologies generated in public research organizations, has become a central aspect of contemporary innovation policies. This paper examines the science/industry intermediation role of academic spin-offs by distinguishing two models, which we qualify as transfer and exploration. While the transfer model has been predominant in both the literature and policy making, its assumptions have been questioned by studies depicting spin-offs as mediators that transform the entities that they transmit and the worlds between which they move. Building on a case study that traces back the emergence of a French spin-off, this paper contrasts the transfer and exploration models of science/industry intermediation. We identify three main points of divergence, relating to socio-technical stability, dynamics and devices, and highlight the challenges raised by the exploration model, both in terms of scholarly analysis and public policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural innovation is a process that takes a multitude of different forms, and, within this process, agricultural research and expertise are mobilised at different points in time for different purposes. This paper uses two key analytical principles to establish how research is actually put into use. The first, which concerns the configurations of organisations and their relationships associated with innovation, reveals the additional set of resources and expertise that research needs to be married to, and sheds light on the types of arrangements that allow this marriage to take place. The second, which concerns understanding innovation as a path-dependent, contextually shaped trajectory unfolding over time, reveals the changing role of research during the course of events associated with the development and diffusion of products, services and institutional innovations. This paper examines the efforts of the Research Into Use programme funded by the UK Department for International Development that sought to explore the agricultural research-into-use question empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the current trends in science and technology (S&T) indicators in Pakistan which rely on the S&T/R&D expenditures, research organizations/institutes, qualified personnel, and publications and patents granted. It then identifies the need to integrate the innovation indicators in order to enable better evaluation and development of S&T policies. New innovation indicators are proposed, based on the conceptual learning from the OECD Blue Sky Forum held in 2006. This forum considered global interest in the direction of integrating S&T and innovation indicators and evidence-based policy development. The learning achieved from this forum is applied in the context of Pakistan to discuss the utility of three major innovation indicators: establishment of linkages and networks; diffusion of innovative knowledge and technology; and management of innovative knowledge inside Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to an important literature on the determinants of academic patenting. We develop and test a model that predicts how individual characteristics and organizational factors affect individual patenting production. The analysis uses zero-inflated negative binomial regression on data from a 2010 national survey of 1,379 US-based university scientists and engineers, 624 of which hold no patents assigned to their current university. Findings from this research generally support our hypotheses that individual and organizational factors are associated with individual patent production. We find that while university patent policy and university technology transfer offices may be important for encouraging or discouraging scientists to patent the first time, department incentives and individual preferences and characteristics predict the number of patents that faculty produce. This research supports prior literature and develops new perspectives on how universities and policy-makers can understand and shape how individual and organizational constraints and incentives affect patent productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's research policy has aimed to facilitate technology transfer from universities and induce innovation in industry for the past three decades. This article examines the policy instruments currently employed by the federal government in Canada to stimulate university-industry research linkages. First, the article examines the national landscape of industry R&D and its interface with university research. Then, multiple policy instruments are identified, and their goals and functions are examined. Finally, the article discusses the main features and implications of Canada's policy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the commercialization of academic research and the role of technology transfer (TT) in mobilizing public sector science. Much of this literature maps a process of institutional isomorphism through which the norms of academy and industry are seen to grow increasingly aligned, facilitated, in part, by new organizations such as offices of technology transfer. Yet questions remain about how fulsome this process has been, with some scholars exploring concurrent processes that reinscribe boundaries and clarify important social distinctions between commercial and non-commercial ends. We report the result of a qualitative study of TT professionals in Canada to explore the complex nature of the 'renormalization' process. We argue that TT professionals solicit industry involvement but accommodate the demands of industry only in part; in turn, they solicit academic involvement by reframing the demands and priorities of commercialization along more academic lines. Ironically, by reframing the norms of commercialization, TT professionals effectively reinforce boundaries between the academy and industry and secure only a partial accommodation by academics to industrial norms. We conclude by raising questions about the meaning of traditional metrics of commercial success for innovation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the technology transfer process from universities and public research institutes to firms in Brazil. In particular, this study is concerned with the role of patents in this process. Although there is a certain enthusiasm in promoting technology transfer offices to manage university patents, the importance of patents to the technology transfer process is not yet well understood in literature. We conducted a survey with leaders of research groups from universities and public research institutes that developed and transferred technology to firms. The results show that patents are one of the least-used channels of technology transfer by universities and public research institutes. But the importance of the channels varies according to the type of technology transferred and to the firms' industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective in this paper is to review the technology stations program at Tshwane University of Technology. The technology stations are a product of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) policy objectives. The DST's policy is aimed at strengthening and expanding mutually beneficial links between universities of technology and small, medium-sized and micro enterprises (SMMEs). The analysis disclosed the contribution of the technology stations to technology transfer in the SMME economy of the electronics and chemicals sub-sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the cases of two universities in Vietnam and their third mission activities where they try to reach out to society at large, through the provision of research, technology transfer services, and other kinds of linkages. It is revealed that third mission activities exist in practice but are closely linked and even mixed up with the second mission. The cases show that the policy framework for financial incentives, management mechanisms, salaries and intellectual property rights, for instance, considerably influences the third mission. There is a need both for government mechanisms to support third mission activities for the community, as well as for a proactive approach by the universities themselves to develop partnerships with other actors in the provinces. These measures include regional training centers and action plans to support farmers and disadvantaged groups of people in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The third mission encompasses all activities of universities beyond their first and second missions, education and research. An analysis of various countries with different economic, political and geographic features reveals an increased demand for such activities in particular with regard to technology transfer, but also as to the support of the civil society in more general terms. Therefore the universities have to find a new balance between education, research and transfer/extension. However, suitable solutions are often complicated by the orientation of the universities and the policy actors on non-scrutinized paradigms originating in other contexts. The strategies in different countries are embedded in their specific context, making it impossible to determine a best practice. Nonetheless, many interesting approaches can be observed, and mutual learning can be fruitful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy lags behind other industrialized countries in public to private technology transfer. One of the causes of this may be the mismatch between new knowledge supplied by public research and industry demand. We test this hypothesis through a survey of leading public research scientists in four high-tech sectors. The findings show that the results of most research projects seem to be of immediate industrial interest, which contrasts with the low level of patents and licensing of Italian public research institutions. For one-third of the research results, there are no Italian companies that are able to exploit them. The same, however, is not true for the remaining results, which shows that the misalignment between public supply and industry demand alone cannot account for poor technology transfer. A closer coordination of research policy and industrial policy is required, as well as closer attention to initiatives which may support the transfer of public research results to Italian industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the entrepreneurial university mode that originally appeared in the US possible in China? Thirty-four universities in the '985 Project' were studied in order to address this question. It is hypothesized that the necessary internal factors for a university to be entrepreneurial are: its research, technology transfer and entrepreneurship capabilities. External factors include: government support through policies and funding, venture capital and collaborations with firms. We concluded that it is possible to achieve an entrepreneurial mode in China, though different from that in the US. As a developing country, China starts from a university-run enterprise model, forming firms within the university. These generally operate in nonhigh-tech mode to gain experience and raise capital, as well as develop research capacity, and then upgrade to a high-tech entrepreneurship mode. A few elite universities will become entrepreneurial universities within 10-20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While policy recognises the need to facilitate university--industry technology transfer (UITT), international studies indicate that the setup and effectiveness of the associated instruments is highly context-specific. We examine the reorientation of Irish universities in the direction of facilitating UITT, with a substantive focus on the role of Ireland's technology transfer offices. This paper also questions how academic research is changing in line with policy rhetoric. We find that Irish university research and the management of its output are changing in a manner that is not incompatible with UITT, although with significant resource and skills constraints. These findings hold important lessons for national economic and innovation systems of comparable size, with a development trajectory shaped by foreign direct investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the principal-agent theory, this paper analyses the historical emergence of policies supporting spin-off activities since the end of the Second World War, focusing on Germany as an exemplary case study. It argues that the significance of spin-offs in research policy is not an effect of their hard-and-fast number or their direct economic impacts but rather of their symbolic meaning, providing legitimacy for academic institutions and funding agencies in controversial public debates about science and technological policies. Spin-offs, like technology transfer at large, are important to the rationale and legitimacy of science and research policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]