Factors Affecting University–Industry R&D Collaboration: The importance of screening and signalling

Roberto Fontana, Aldo Geuna and Mireille Matt ()

Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg

Abstract: This paper presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of research cooperation between firms and Public Research Organisations (PROs) for a sample of innovating small and mediumsized enterprises. The econometric analysis is based on the results of the KNOW survey carried out in seven EU countries during 2000. In contrast to earlier works that provide information about the importance of PROs’ research, we know how many collaborative projects a firm has had with PROs. This allows us to study the determinants of firms’ collaboration with PROs in terms of both the propensity of a firm to cooperate with a university (do they cooperate or not) and the extent of this cooperation (the number of collaborations). Two questions are addressed. Which firms cooperated with PROs? And what are the firm characteristics that might explain the number of collaborations with PROs? The results of our analysis point to two major phenomena. First, the propensity to forge an agreement with an academic partner depends on the ‘absolute size’ of the industrial partner. Second the openness of firms to the external environment, as measured by their willingness to search, screen and signal, significantly affects the development of cooperations with PROs. Our findings suggest that acquiring knowledge through the screening of publications and involvement in public policies positively affects the probability of signing an agreement with a PRO, but not the level of collaboration developed. In fact, firms that outsource research and development (R&D), and patent to protect innovation and to signal competencies show higher levels of collaboration.

Keywords: Public Research Organisations; University-Industry R&D cooperation; Openness. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H4 L3 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-ino and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://beta.u-strasbg.fr/WP/2005/2005-07.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2005-07

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of BETA from Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).