Shaping the formation of university-industry research collaborations: what type of proximity does really matter?

Pablo D'Este (pdeste@ingenio.es), Frederick Guy and Simona Iammarino

No 1106, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Research collaborations between universities and industry (U-I) are considered to be one important channel of potential localised knowledge spillovers. These collaborations favour both intended and unintended flows of knowledge and facilitate learning processes between partners from different organisations. Despite the copious literature on localised knowledge spillovers, still little is known about the factors driving the formation of U-I research collaborations and, in particular, about the role that geographical proximity plays in the establishment of such relationships. Using collaborative research grants between universities and business firms awarded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), in this paper we disentangle some of the conditions under which different kinds of proximity contribute to the formation of U-I research collaborations, focussing in particular on technological complementarity among the firms participating in such partnerships.

Keywords: university-industry research collaborations; proximity; geography; industrial clustering; technological complementarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 O33 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2011-03, Revised 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-net, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1106.pdf Version March 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Shaping the formation of university--industry research collaborations: what type of proximity does really matter? (2013)
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