Which firms use universities as cooperation partners? – A comparative view in Europe

Kärt Roigas*, Pierre Mohnen, Urmas Varblane

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Collaboration between firms and universities, two main actors in the national system of innovation, brings the needs of the business world to the attention of the scientific community and allow scientific progress to be diffused more quickly in the real world. The aim of the paper is to compare the determinants of university-industry cooperation across countries and to identify differences between firms that cooperate with domestic and those that cooperate with foreign universities. We use data from 14 European countries taken from the 2008 community innovation survey. The degree of internationalisation is the main determinant of cooperation. Exporting or foreign-owned firms are more likely to cooperate with foreign universities. Differences in cooperation determinants also appear between the four country groupings that we extract by a cluster analysis on variables describing their institutional settings and national innovation systems. Notably different is the group of countries with a weak national innovation system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)32-57
Number of pages26
JournalInternational Journal of Technology Management
Volume76
Issue number1/2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • university-industry cooperation
  • national system of innovation
  • open innovation
  • knowledge-based theory of the firm
  • competitiveness
  • technological change
  • cooperation with foreign universities
  • external sources of knowledge
  • triple helix
  • comparative view
  • European countries
  • community innovation survey
  • RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT
  • INNOVATION STRATEGIES
  • ABSORPTIVE-CAPACITY
  • MARKET ECONOMIES
  • BUSINESS SYSTEMS
  • PERSPECTIVE
  • CAPITALISM
  • VARIETIES
  • OPENNESS

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