Universities and Firms: A Comparative Analysis of the Interactions Between Market Process, Organizational Strategies and Governance Seminar, September 2-3, 2002 Industry-university S&T transfers: what can we learn from Belgian CIS-2 data? preliminary draft Henri Capron and Michele Cincera (DULBEA-ULB)

OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER: Role played by universities as a source of innovation information for firms Main determinants of industry-university cooperative arrangements in innovation Sample of 1205 Belgian manufacturing firms in OUTLINE OF THIS TALK: Stylised facts Data/CIS-2 Econometric framework Empirical findings Conclusions

STYLISED FACTS: interactions between firms & universities Focus of R&D policy in Belgium towards a closer collaboration between enterprises and universities Large debate about the real effects of universities to permanent interaction with industry Important barriers to industry-university collaborations Industry and universities are not natural partners Firms’ goal is to make profits so that their focus is on marketable outputs Universities’ missions are to produce and transmit knowledge with a main stress placed on leading-edge knowledge regardless of its commercial fallout

STYLISED FACTS: interactions between firms & universities Functioning of European universities is not based on the same rules than American ones European universities depend to a large extent of public financing while the American ones are privately financed Rosenberg (2001): American universities are more market- driven than their European counterpart In the EU, over the last years universities have been increasingly encouraged either directly or indirectly to co- operate with industry in order to alleviate the burdens of public expenditure

STYLISED FACTS: interactions between firms & universities University-industry interactions can take several forms (Business-Higher Education Forum, 2001) that are at the source of technology transfers from universities to companies: industry sponsored research; collaborative research that can be encouraged by public funding; research consortia that put together some companies and universities engaged in various research efforts of common group interest; technology licensing from universities to companies for commercialisation; start-up companies involving universities and having licensing agreements to access university technologies; exchange of research materials to expedite the performance of research; university consultancy and services; Graduate and continuing education

STYLISED FACTS: interactions between firms & universities Industry-university collaborations can be beneficial for both partners Hicks (2001): universities can enhance their scientific impact by reinforcing collaborations with the industrial sector. So the counting of the number of papers among the most cited 1,000 papers from 1981 to 1992 puts forward that 3.3 of every 1,000 university-industry collaborative papers were among the most cited papers against 2.2 for university-university collaborative papers and 1.7 for single university papers Mansfield (1991, 1992 and 1998): over 10% of the new products and processes introduced by firms could not have been developed without substantial delay in the absence of academic research. The importance of recent research was rated highest by the pharmaceutical industry

DATA:DATA: The 2nd Community Innovation survey (CIS-2) database contains about 80 variables regarding innovation and economic activities as well as qualitative information regarding the links between enterprises and the different categories of actors in the innovation system: A first type of information deals with the sources of innovation for innovation The second bears on the co-operation arrangements on innovation activities of enterprises with other enterprises or institutions Both types of information allow one to investigate to what extent beside and compared to other institutions universities can be considered as a privileged source of new innovative ideas for enterprises

DATA: Belgian CIS-2: period , 2170 surveyed firms, 1378 answers OSTC (1998): no selection bias trimming procedure: all observations with  L,  X or  (L/Y) 100%, with R&D/Y >50% and log(L/Y) below the lower centile or beyond the upper centile have been excluded final sample 1205 manufacturing firms 290 firms reported >0 R&D expenditures in 1996 these firms are representative of 40.4% of Belgian total Business Expenditures on Research and Development in 1996

DATA: Sample composition

DATA: Sample composition

DATA: Descriptive statistics for main variables

DATA: Number of innovators with very important sources of information for innovation by country (% and rank), 1996

DATA: Number of innovators with innovation collaboration by country and size (%), 1996

DATA: Number of innovators by type of partners as a share of innovation co-operators, EEA and Belgium, 1996

ECONOMETRIC FRAMEWORK:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: Role of universities as sources of information for manufacturing innovators:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: Role of universities as sources of information for manufacturing innovators:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: Role of universities as sources of information for manufacturing innovators:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: Role of universities as sources of information for manufacturing innovators:

EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: Collaborations between universities and industry:

CONCLUSIONS: Main findings: factors explaining the use of a particular source of information for innovation not the same according to the type of source Access to university-based information positively influenced by size of firms, public support to innovation and membership to foreign group Among the objectives to innovate, only the fulfilling of regulations and standards and the reduction of environmental damage positively affect firms to access to university-based information. In terms of industry-universities S&T collaborations, size, government support, and patent applications tend to increase the probability to innovate

CONCLUSIONS: Main findings: At European level, universities do not appear to be the most important source of information for firms’ innovative activities The most important sources are internal, i.e. within the enterprise or with other firms of the group and with clients or customers Information from universities appears however to be more important in Belgium as compared to the European average A different picture emerges when we look at university-industry collaborations: In Belgium, universities are the second most important types of collaborators (after the firms within the group) and 53% of Belgian companies claim having co-operative agreements with universities, which is significantly above the European average of 38%

CONCLUSIONS: Policy recommendations:

CONCLUSIONS: Policy recommendations:

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