Best Practices in Knowledge Transfer: Insights from Top Universities

Annamaria Demarinis Loiotile, Francesco De Nicolò, Adriana Agrimi, Loredana Bellantuono (), Marianna La Rocca, Alfonso Monaco, Ester Pantaleo, Sabina Tangaro, Nicola Amoroso and Roberto Bellotti
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Annamaria Demarinis Loiotile: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Francesco De Nicolò: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Adriana Agrimi: Direzione Ricerca, Terza Missione e Internazionalizzazione, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70121 Bari, Italy
Loredana Bellantuono: Dipartimento di Biomedicina Traslazionale e Neuroscienze (DiBraiN), Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70124 Bari, Italy
Marianna La Rocca: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Alfonso Monaco: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Ester Pantaleo: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy
Sabina Tangaro: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy
Nicola Amoroso: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy
Roberto Bellotti: Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70126 Bari, Italy

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-23

Abstract: The impact of knowledge transfer induced by universities on economy, society, and culture is widely acknowledged; nevertheless, this aspect is often neglected by university rankings. Here, we considered three of the most popular global university rankings and specific knowledge transfer indicators by U-multirank, a European ranking system launched by the European Commission, in order to answer to the following research question: how do the world top universities, evaluated according to global university rankings, perform from a knowledge transfer point of view? To this aim, the top universities have been compared with the others through the calculation of a Global Performance Indicator in Knowledge Transfer (GPI KT), a hierarchical clustering, and an outlier analysis. The results show that the universities best rated by global rankings do not always perform as well from knowledge transfer point of view. By combining the obtained results, it is possible to state that only 5 universities (Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, CALTEC), among the top in the world, exhibit a high-level performance in knowledge transfer activities. For a better understanding of the success factors and best practices in knowledge transfer, a brief description of the 5 cited universities, in terms of organization of technology transfer service, relationship with business, entrepreneurship programs, and, more generally, third mission activities, is provided. A joint reading of the results suggests that the most popular global university rankings probably fail to effectively photograph third mission activities because they can manifest in a variety of forms, due to the intrinsic and intangible nature of third mission variables, which are difficult to quantify with simple and few indicators.

Keywords: technology transfer; world university rankings; knowledge transfer indicators; third mission; university-industry relationship; best practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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