DISAGGREGATING FIRMS IN ANALYSING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF THE UNIVERSITY–INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIP: BASED ON AN ANALYTICAL AND EMPIRICAL STUDY FROM SCOTLAND

It has been acknowledged that universities are key institutions in national and regional systems of innovation. This recognition has led to a rich stream of literature analysing the university–industry relationship. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to disaggregating the ‘industry’ side of this relationship and examining the costs and benefits to the disaggregated parties involved. In the present article, which draws on an analytical and empirical study from Scotland, it is suggested that it makes sense to distinguish between three kinds of firms in analysing the university–industry relationship: large national and international R&D-intensive firms, university spin-out firms, and established small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have had little interaction with universities. The different costs and benefits facing these firms in their interactions with universities are analysed. It is concluded that the established SMEs confront relatively high costs in relating to universities. Finally, the policy implications are explored.     

The “swing of the pendulum” from public to market support for science and technology: Is the U.S. leading the way?

The structure and financing of science and technology activities are undergoing a slow, but profound, change. This change can be briefly characterized as a shift from relying and supporting public science to a stronger emphasis on “market-based” incentives for science and technology. In this paper we analyze this shift in a historical perspective, discussing both the theoretical explanations and the empirical trends of the ongoing change. While we do not claim to provide a comprehensive and exhaustive identification of the causes of this shift, we argue that it is largely driven by the perception of a shift of the U.S. policy towards market-based, rather than publicly supported, incentives for science and technology. This, in turn—given the strong economic performance of the United States over the 1990s—has influenced policies in most OECD countries, especially in Europe.We conclude by analyzing the evolution of research in U.S. higher education and find two major trends: an increasing diversity in the number of institutions of different types other than universities and a steady and continuous public funding of the leading U.S. universities. This has allowed the construction of an infrastructure now used largely by the private sector, but it also noted that the United States has not compromised public support for core areas or in those fields in which there is a clear perception that market incentives are not sufficient for meeting the strategic targets of the U.S. policy. The implication is that there is a considerable policy diversity in the U.S. practice and that all aspects of this diversity should be considered when using the United States as a reference.     

The supply of education quality in a spatial model with asymmetric moving costs

The paper analyses the characteristics of the supply of higher education in different geographical macroareas using a strategic interaction framework. It focuses on universities operating in centralised funding system that autonomously set the quality of education showing that in equilibrium it is inversely related to students’ moving costs across areas. We show that in the presence of asymmetric information about workers’ ability and asymmetric costs of moving, the only PBE consistent with forward induction involves that only high ability workers acquire education and the quality of education is lower in macroareas where the moving costs are higher. Our model predicts that in economies with centralised university funding, educational policies must be regulated according to the specific socioeconomic characteristics of the area. Direct subsidies to universities may be ineffective in improving the quality of education in the less developed areas. When regional disparities are not too big, efficiency gains may be obtained by reducing moving costs.     

我国重点高校技术转移效率变化的影响因素研究—基于面板随机前沿分析方法

为研究制约我国重点高校技术转移效率提升的影响因素,本研究基于随机前沿分析的超越对数函数测算了我国91所高校2007—2016年的技术转移效率的动态变化,探究了外部区域市场和高校自身异质性因素对技术转移效率的影响程度。研究发现:市场需求对技术转移效率的拉动作用是有限的,过大的市场需求可能抑制技术转移效率的提升;而高技术产业的聚集和与市场联系的增强可以有效提升技术转移效率。此外,就技术转移效率动态变化模式的研究发现,高校技术转移效率增长模式在不同学科结构和区域之间存在显著差异。最后,就研究结论对高校和政府提升技术转移效率提出了相应的政策建议。     

Development of internal resources and capabilities as sources of differentiation of SME under increased global competition: A field study in Mexico

This paper draws on the resource-based view of the firm and contributes to our understanding of how the development of internal resources and capabilities in SMEs can provide sources of competitive advantages in the international arena and improve their business performance.This research found statistical evidence to suggest that business performance measured by growth rate, efficiency, productivity and shareholder's financial returns, is positively related with the development of internal capabilities such as soft technology (methods and processes that support the firm) and hard technology (externally acquired equipment, in-house development of machinery and innovation in raw materials) and a strategy of continuous improvement, innovation and change.A number of relevant contributions are proposed in this piece of research that expands our understanding of how SMEs can compete in the international context: (1) firms whose explicit business strategy emphasizes innovation and knowledge creation have been able to successfully participate in global contexts; (2) even though financial resources are important for a firm to leverage performance it was found that development of internal capabilities has been more important than limited financial resources in order to develop competitive advantages to compete with larger and multinational competitors; (3) results of this research support the proposition that from an associational economy perspective the development of a geographical region or country should be an interaction among a number of constituents namely government policies, the firms themselves and universities and research centers among others.     

论高校辅导员与学生家长的有效沟通

家庭教育在大学生思想政治工作中起着重要作用,是大学教育的有益补充。文章分析了当前高校与学生家庭之间欠缺互动的现状及原因,提出高校辅导员要创新与学生家长沟通的方式,利用现代通讯技术加强与学生家长的交流互动,以达到共同教育的目的,促进大学生健康成才。     

The R&D system for industrial development in Taiwan

The research and development (R&D) system for industrial development in Taiwan is made up of three parts: industrial firms, government-supported institutes (GSIs), and academic institutes and universities. The Taiwanese experience showed that the effective interaction of the GSIs and the industrial firms has successfully supported the development of its industry. The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) played the key role in industrial development during recent decades. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of ITRI and the way in which it fulfills its role through an examination of its major tasks. The implications for developing countries are also discussed.     

Japan's technological strategy

While it is well established that borrowed technology has played an important role in Japan's economic development, the nature of this process needs further clarification. This paper deals with the catching-up hypothesis: that a technological gap between Japan and other industrial countries (primarily the United States) emerged during World War II, but has been narrowing since then. Making a distinction between absorptive and creative R and D, we show that Japan's technological strategy emphasized the former while allowing the gap in the latter to remain.     

Coping with Technology Divergence Policies and Strategies for India’s Industrial Development

Recent studies on innovation have demonstrated the relationship between technology and growth. However, as most of them are centered on the experience of the highly industrialized nations, a different approach to technology policy must be taken. As late industrializers, developing countries lag in adopting foreign technologies. Institutional factors and economic policy also influence the diffusion process. With decentralized decision making, the coexistence of diverse technologies in a given industrial branch is inevitable. Consequently, social costs tend to be high because of duplication of efforts, reduced learning opportunities, and adoption of inefficient technologies. This article examines the coexistence of diverse technologies leading to technology fragmentation in India’s steel industry. Recent innovative behavior in the Japanese and Korean steel industry indicates that the effects of fragmentation can be contained through a policy of “system integration.” This is an institutional process by which industry-specific applications of scientific knowledge are fused with basic research itself. This demands a forward-looking policy that rejuvenates older industries, such as steel, in socially acceptable ways and organically creates new knowledge for national development and social welfare.     

University education in future studies— a mark III critique: Part II

In 1970 an initial survey was made of futures courses at university level based on forty courses that could be located in the United States and Canada [Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 2, 133–148 (1970)]. This was replicated during 1970–1972 on approximately 200 North American courses and reported changes in the field at the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest, September 1972 (Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, 4, 387–407 [1973]). A third interation was funded by the World Institute Council and published in abstracted form with their permission here. The conclusions to be drawn from some six years of analysis of such courses, and drawn especially from the specifics of the 300 courses in the third iteration, can be lumped under five main headings: (1) All disciplines are to some degree finally alerted to the future implications of both their research and their teaching. (2) There remains still much “froth and nonsense” in futures courses. How to control this and encourage lively creativity is a complex problem-especially since the intellectual image of futurism today is not that high! (3) There appears to be no reliable sociocultural change theory backing future studies and there is precious little solid theory backing future studies and there is precious little solid theory in the field itself-offset by some progress in methodology. (4) Despite these strictures, if all future-oriented courses in American/Canadian universities were lumped together (future Studies per se; technology forecasting/assessment; policy sciences; peace studies; demography; environmental/ecology courses; general systems theory/system analysis/system dynamics; mathematical modelling and game theory; eschatology; utopian literature and science fiction; even black studies and women's courses) the total might approach 5000 and it is still growing, as is popular and academic understanding of the necessity “to plan ahead” in this period of human malaise. (5) Informal education of varied worth, from free swinging communes to middle management cram courses conducted by think-tanks, may turn out to be more useful in future-oriented advanced education than that which takes place in formal “walled” traditional institutions.     

基于文献综述法的硬科技创新研究现状与识别方法研究

硬科技创新是实体经济和原创性高精尖科技的结合,对我国未来创新驱动发展起着巨大推动作用,有助于我国形成核心竞争力。识别硬科技创新将有助于引导社会投资,从而抢占经济制高点。本文通过硬科技研究主题检索和其他相关文献搜集梳理现阶段硬科技创新研究文献,从中总结出硬科技具有科学家深度参与、创新性、战略性三个主要特点,并与突破性创新、颠覆性创新做出区分,提出硬科技创新识别应该从识别学术型发明人出发,挖掘领域内学术型发明人研究主题,尤其是高校及科研院所内长期研究且资本密集度高的研究主题,为后续相关研究提供思路。     

Technological generalizations and leitbilder—the anticipation of technological opportunities

Recent national technology foresight studies as well as the Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University are very much based on “nodes of discussion.” These short statements are called, e.g., topics, issues, or developments. This article provides a framework for the classification and analysis of nodes related to future technological development. Key concepts of the article are “technological generalization” and “leitbild.” The topics in the technology foresight Delphi studies can be seen as different kinds of generalizations from already realized technological developments. Leitbild is a German word. Its most general meaning is a guiding image. Like a common vision, a leitbild creates a shared overall goal, offers orientation toward one long-term overall goal, and provides a basis for different professions and disciplines to work in the same direction. The analysis of leitbilder and emerging technological paradigms might contribute to the construction of topics and issues and to the argumentation processes related to them.     

Measuring universities’ R&D performance in China’s provinces: a multistage efficiency and effectiveness perspective

ABSTRACT

Evaluating universities’ R&D performance can serve as a tool for policymakers, enabling them to identify the best R&D practitioners for benchmarking and develop strategies for enhancing performance by highlighting areas of weakness. This study divides universities’ R&D performance into two dimensions: efficiency and effectiveness. We employ a network data envelopment analysis approach to measure universities’ R&D efficiency, and separately use a multi-index comprehensive evaluation method to assess their R&D effectiveness from a multistage perspective. We calculate the comprehensive R&D performance of universities in 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2014. An analysis of temporal variation reveals that universities’ R&D performance in some provinces improved rapidly, increasing gaps in performance as a whole. The spatial pattern for the 30 provinces shows that universities in provinces with medium or strong R&D performance are mainly in coastal provinces and central areas in China. Finally, universities’ R&D activities are considered ‘efficient and effective’ only in a small number of provinces, while in most provinces, these activities can generally be considered ‘less efficient and effective.’ Hence, universities in provinces with different R&D performance modes should implement targeted improvement strategies according to their characteristics.     

Industry-university technology cooperation: a theory of inter-organizational relationships

This article proposes a grounded theoretical framework of R&D technology cooperation based on the congruence of existing theories of inter-organizational relationships. The theory is grounded in the empirical experiences of the industry-university cooperative centers in the US. It addresses two research questions: (1) Why do universities and industrial companies engage in cooperatioe R&D? (2) What factors affect their survival? Perceived resource dependency is proposed to be a motivator for initiating cooperative R&D. Interaction theories explain survivability, in that prior interaction between the parties and the degree of institutionalization of the interactions are hypothesized to explain survival over time. The intensity of interaction is also suggested to improve the chances for survival, but within a range of optimality (not too much and not too little). Iimitations and implications for research and poliy are also discussed.     

Scopes of intervention and evolutionary paths for argentinian universities transfer offices*

ABSTRACT

The majority of researches on knowledge and technology transfer from universities focused on the topic of processes which can improve the efficiency of the commercialization of R&D results. Furthermore, the different channels of transfer have been studied mainly independent of each other. This article develops a more strategic approach and proposes an integrated view of 16 channels of transfer organized around four core competences and considering their main form of governance. The empirical analysis is based on data gathered through a survey and an interview on a sample of 29 Argentinian National Universities publicly funded. The findings highlight four types of strategies – integral, network, entrepreneurial and undetermined – and two main types of potential evolutionary paths. The ability to differentiate the scopes of the intervention of universities transfer activities has implications for universities as well as for policymakers.     

科技成果权属混合所有制对高校创新效率的影响

国内科技成果混合所有制试点已开展5年时间,旨在将科技成果部分产权分配给科研人员,通过权利变革改善高校科技创新状况。关于混合所有制试点对高校创新效率的影响,目前缺乏整体定量评价。运用双重差分法计算试点对高校创新效率的整体影响,进而测算产权结构变化对试点与高校创新效率间关系的影响。研究表明,科技成果混合所有制试点对高校创新效率具有正向影响,但因赋权而产生的高校与科研人员共有产权关系没有发挥试点改革对高校创新效率的促进作用,而高校与多元主体共有产权关系正向影响试点改革对高校创新效率的作用。最后,提出政策建议：加快构建精准的混合所有制权利配置体系,明晰主体间产权关系,推动高校与企业等创新主体开展高质量合作,逐步实现试点区域协同管理。     

高校牵头国家重大科技项目科研组织模式研究——以北航长鹰无人机为例

新中国成立以来,国家在航空航天、通信计算机、智能制造、新材料等多个领域先后推出一系列重大科技项目,致力于突破关键技术、保障国防安全、推动社会经济发展。20世纪90年代末,我国将中高空长航时无人机研发作为重大战略性科技项目,在几乎一穷二白的困境下由高校牵头开展原型机自主研制并最终取得成功。以具有划时代意义的长鹰无人机研制历程为例,基于扎根理论归纳国家重大科技项目特征及科研组织模式,探讨模式中的关键组成要素及相互作用关系。结果发现,该模式以面向国家战略需求导向的大项目为牵引,在跨建制、跨单位、跨系统建成的国家队与产学研合作大平台的相互作用下,促成总体目标实现、人才队伍培养、产业发展带动等重大成果的正向激励反馈。在新时代背景下,该研究结论能为高校服务国家重大战略需求、更好地发挥科技创新生力军作用提供有价值的实践路径和管理经验。     

企业创新倾向、吸收能力与跨界技术并购创新绩效—— 一项模糊集定性比较分析

在吸收理论的基础上，结合行业技术环境和企业双元创新倾向，提出跨界技术并购企业创新绩效实现机制的整合性分析框架，并使用fsQCA对107个上市公司跨界技术并购案例进行构型研究。结果发现，在高创新绩效构型中，主并企业创新倾向与吸收能力不同维度间存在差异化匹配关系；企业潜在吸收能力与现实吸收能力间具有一定的替代关系，技术基础广度和吸收转化投入强度对于创新绩效提高相对重要；丰富的外部技术资源更有助于创新绩效提升。研究结论拓展了吸收能力理论，丰富了跨界技术并购领域实证证据，可为不同特征企业制定跨界技术并购决策提供参考依据。     

高校科技创新、空间溢出与区域经济发展

本文搜集整理了2008—2017年31个省(市、自治区)(因数据缺失,不包括港澳台地区)高校科技创新能力及区域经济发展的空间面板数据,在评价各省域高校科技创新能力基础上运用ArcGIS探寻两者的空间分布特征.利用空间面板模型对高校科技创新能力对区域经济发展的影响进行参数估计;选取时点固定效应的空间杜宾模型将各变量对经济发展的空间溢出效应进行分解.研究结果表明:一是高校科技创新能力和区域经济发展在地理空间上的集聚特征更加集中;二是解释变量高校科技创新能力和各控制变量的提高对区域经济发展水平有显著正向影响;三是空间效应分解后,按直接、间接和总效应的作用方向、数值大小和是否通过显著性水平检验,结果可分为三类.     

FDI对区域不同层次技术创新的知识溢出效应——基于面板数据的空间计量经济学模型

采用Moran's I指数验证了区域不同层次技术创新的空间相关性;借鉴知识生产函数,运用基于面板数据的空间滞后计量模型,检验了FDI、高校和企业研发投入等因素对区域不同层次的技术创新的影响。研究结果表明:FDI对区域不同层次的技术创新均没有促进作用,甚至对较高层次的技术创新具有"抑制、挤出或替代"的负面效应;本地区不同层次的技术创新均会受到相邻地区的技术创新的正向影响,三类专利的影响程度从高到底排序为发明、外观设计、实用新型。