Industrial interactions and academic patenting: evidence from German scientists

Using a unique survey of scientists at a large public research organization, this paper examines the effects of industry interactions on academic patenting. Two types of collaborations, industrial cooperation and consulting, are considered. Results show that both cooperation and consultancy increase the likelihood of patenting. However, only the positive influence of industrial cooperation stands up to robustness checks. Effects of personal, professional and institutional factors are in line with the literature, yet with some differences across cooperation and consultancy. Implications for research policy concerning academic patenting and challenges that industry may experience are discussed.     

University IPRs and knowledge transfer: is university ownership more efficient?

This paper addresses an issue that has been largely ignored so far in the empirical literature on the role of patents in university–industry knowledge transfer: does it matter who owns the patents on university research? We observe that especially in Europe, many patents in which university researchers are listed as inventors are not owned by the university. From a literature review, we conclude that private ownership of university patents may reduce the efficiency of the knowledge transfer process. This hypothesis is put to an empirical test, using data on patents in six European countries. Specifically, we assess whether university-owned patents (in Europe) are more often applied, and/or more economically valuable, than university-invented (but not-owned) patents. Our results indicate that, after correcting for observable patent characteristics, there are only very small differences between university-owned and university-invented patents in terms of their rate of commercialization or economic value.     

高等院校学术团队建设研究

随着高校学术团队建设的迅速发展,影响学术团队建设的因素不断出现。如何搭建一支具有"高水平、高质量"的高校学术团队,已成为高校的重要课题。当下,与世界发达国家的先进高等教育机制相接轨,完善现有高校团队建设的机制,可能是解决高校学术团队建设中的主要问题的主要策略。     

How governments seek to bridge the financing gap for university spin-offs: proof-of-concept,pre-seed,and seed funding

University spin-offs often develop early-stage technologies characterised by long development paths and uncertain commercial potential. Private financiers, such as banks, informal investors, and venture capital firms, are reluctant to invest in these ventures at an early stage. To bridge this financing gap, governments have set up specialised programmes, but few studies have examined the rationale and organisation of different types of programmes. We analyse government schemes in six countries and identify three main categories of funding initiatives. Proof-of-concept (PoC) schemes aim to reduce the technological uncertainty. Pre-seed schemes aim to reduce the organisational uncertainty and make the nascent venture attractive to investors. Seed funding schemes provide early-stage equity financing. The seed funding initiatives seek to improve the supply of funding, while there seems to be an increasing number of pre-seed and PoC schemes seeking to bridge the financing gap from the demand-side by increasing the attractiveness of the spin-offs towards investors.     

University-level mechanisms supporting the creation of new companies: an analysis of Italian academic spin-offs

In this paper we address the role of university policies in the creation of academic spin-offs. We focus on university technology transfer units (UTTUs) in Italy and on the mechanisms they have implemented to support academic entrepreneurship. We gathered data relating to their strategies for technology transfer and to the mechanisms they had implemented to support new venture creation. Results show that the number of people dedicated to technology transfer activities, strong relationships that UTTUs have with external organisations involved in technology transfer activities, and finally support services provided by universities and UTTUs have a significant influence in fostering the generation of new ventures.     

H指数及其衍生指数在高校教师学术评价中的研究

以CNKI数据库中的引文数据为基础,获取某"211"高校2001—2010年10位教授的论文发表情况,根据各相关指数的定义,通过比较,分别统计计算出十位教授的h指数、g指数、h(2)指数、A指数、M商,根据相关数值全面评价高校教师学术水平。研究表明,结合各项指数的优缺点综合它们的结果,可以更加准确地评价出高校教授的学术影响力水平,使其结果更加公平和公正。     

The determinants of EST adoption by manufacturing plants in developing countries

This article reports on the findings of a survey undertaken in late 2001-early 2002 on the determinants of environmentally sound technology (EST) adoption by 98 plants in eight developing countries. We review the literature on technology diffusion and technology capabilities as well as empirical studies with an exclusive focus on developing countries that explicitly addressed environmental performance or EST adoption to formulate our heuristic model that guided our investigation. We examine in some detail the determinants of both prevention and abatement technologies, which has seldom been investigated, in developing countries.In full recognition of literature that cites a host of reasons that cause plants to adopt EST we take into account both contextual and plant-specific factors. We use an ordered choice model that revealed that plant-specific factors assume a pre-dominant role in explaining the adoption of higher order of complexity EST. Plant-specific factors, specifically environmental commitment, technological capabilities, and ownership, and market factors, specifically foreign involvement and water and energy price perception, matter in determining the type of technological response and thus in explaining the adoption of higher-order complexity EST. Two governmental factors, regulatory implementation strategy and international donor assistance, also play a role in the adoption of EST. However, civil society, in particular community pressure that has been identified as an important determinant of environmental performance, does not play a role because of the way the dependent variable is constructed to capture higher orders of technological complexity.     

Factors affecting technology transfer offices' performance in the Italian food context

In recent years, growing attention has been devoted to the commercialisation of knowledge and technologies developed by universities and public research institutions. A central role in this particular process is played by the technology transfer offices (TTOs), which are on the one hand in charge of promoting the transfer of knowledge and technology to external companies, and on the other hand are also responsible for protecting and licensing the intellectual property of the research organisation. This paper is focused on a TTO operating in the food context, with the specific objectives of identifying the performance indicators and the main factors affecting its performance and, finally, analysing the relationships among these factors. Results highlighted the importance of both external and internal factors for the performance of a TTO operating in this context. In addition, we found both direct and indirect relations within these factors.     

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.     

The use and development of indicators for the commercialisation of university research in a national support programme

Governments in most countries have set up specialised programmes to support the commercialisation of academic research. A key challenge is to develop indicators that are able to measure operation and impact. This study shows how different indicators are used to satisfy different stakeholders of a Norwegian support programme. Policy intervention is supposed to lead to additionality related to input, behaviour and output. While the support programme uses input and behavioural measures as strategic tools for its operation, policy makers are mostly preoccupied with output measures. This study illustrates how indicators develop over time, partly co-evolving with the development of the programme and the national commercialisation infrastructure. Indicators serve as incentives for the agents involved, but they may also influence the strategies of the programme that established them. The external signalling effect of indicators remains central, while its use in daily operations becomes less important with time and experience.     

The relationship between research funding and academic consulting: An empirical investigation in the Spanish context

This paper investigates the relationship between sources of funding for research activity and the engagement of scientists in a specific type of knowledge transfer, that is, academic consulting. We rely on a sample of 2603 individual scientists from five Spanish universities, who have been awarded public funding or have been principal investigators in activities contracted by external agents, over the period 1999–2004. We find that externally contracted research is positively related to the amount of monetary income from consulting contracts, but that international competitive funding has a negative effect. Our results show that this negative effect is positively moderated by the size of contract funding: the effect of international competitive funding becomes positive for moderate and high levels of contract funding. By investigating the relationship between academic consulting and different types of research funding, our paper sheds light on the conditions that favor academic consulting.     

The impact of public R&D investments on patenting activity: technology transfer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

ABSTRACT

This paper presents estimates of the impact of public R&D on patenting activity at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Using a time series of public sector agency data, we estimate the per-capita R&D elasticity of new patent applications using a knowledge production function framework model that is an expanded version of what other scholars have used with private sector data. New patent applications are an important step in the technology transfer activities of a federal agency. We estimate this elasticity to be about 2.0. This elasticity value represents an initial estimate of the impact of EPA’s R&D investments on its technology transfer activity.     

国内学术期刊质量监管的博弈分析——基于编辑与作者之间的博弈

通过阐述保证学术期刊质量的因素以及期刊质量监管的途径,可以看出,无论是在保证学术期刊的质量上,还是在对期刊质量的监管上,编辑与作者都是其中最基本的因素。由此,借助博弈理论,构建一个基于编辑和作者间的博弈来对学术期刊质量进行监管的模型,并对模型进行分析得出,编辑对当前屡禁不止的学术不端行为进行有效的监管,是提升学术期刊质量的强有力手段之一。     

Financing technology transfer: assessment of university-oriented proof-of-concept programmes

This study analyses the characteristics of the proof-of-concept (POC) programmes initiated by university and public research organisations in Europe, as a mechanism to address funding gaps and improve the transfer of research-based inventions to markets. We contribute to the literature on investment readiness of new ventures and on financing technology transfer by assessing the structure of such funding instruments and identifying critical success factors for their design and implementation. The analyses rely on seven in-depth case studies of university-oriented POCs in Europe.     

Good students,avid readers: The cost of academic success

The effects of reading habits on academic performances have been carefully investigated, but little is known about the effects of academic achievements on students’ leisure reading. This paper investigates this issue by estimating the effects of academic achievements, proxied by the number of exams passed, on leisure reading, measured by the number of leisure books read in a year. Using an online survey submitted to the students at the University of Bologna, Italy, we adopt a two-step control-function technique to control for endogeneity. The empirical evidence suggests the existence of a negative relationship between students’ academic achievements and the time devoted to leisure reading. This result holds for students of different fields of study and is stronger for male students. The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition supports the existence of a gender-specific idiosyncratic effect.     

Does student employment really impact academic achievement? The case of France

Student employment is usually thought to curb academic achievement. Our research relating to a survey at a French university in 2012 emphasizes the significance of the intensity of student working hours. Allowance for the endogeneity of student employment reinforces the negative effects, particularly for young people working more than 16 hours a week. However, the academic achievement of those working fewer than 8 hours per week seems unaffected. The type of employment also affects the chances of success: students with public sector jobs appear to be less prone to failure, possibly because of more flexible working hours.     

世界主要国家科技成果转化的新举措及其启示

为了应对科技革命和产业变革带来的挑战,引领本国经济走出金融危机的影响,世界主要国家近年来陆续出台了一系列支持科技成果转化的新举措,涉及宏观层面的创新战略和政府科技管理机构调整、中观层面的专项计划和平台建设以及微观层面的机制创新。通过对这些新举措进行系统梳理,并结合我国科技成果转化存在的问题,从围绕创新链统筹配置科技资源、创新科技中介服务机构建设模式、加强科技成果转化各环节信息化建设等3个方面,为强化我国科技成果转化提出了政策建议。     

技术创新中资产专用性造成的转换成本问题研究

从资产专用性的角度着手，分析了专用性资产在技术创新中形成的转换成本，并且进一步分析了在单一技术范式发展进程中为保证专用性资产投资的制度安排对这种转换成本的影响，最后提出了如何有效地降低这种转换成本的方法。     

基于三螺旋理论的我国技术转移新途径分析

大学的“创业使命”和技术转移在知识经济的时代背景下形成了某种耦合。本文通过探讨三螺旋理论中关于技术转移和创业型大学的经典逻辑关系以及借鉴美国大学技术转移的成功经验,指出我国技术转移中存在的主要问题,并进一步基于三螺旋视角,从大学、政府和产业三方面提出了以建立创业型大学为契机来构建技术转移新途径的政策建议。     

日元升值后日本科技投入的变化

二战后至70年代为经济高速增长时期,日本形成政府护航,企业投入为主的科技投入模式。20世纪70至90年代的日元大幅升值,使得这种模式受到冲击,为此,日本政府对科技投入进行了一些调整。本文主要对日元升值后日本科技投入的变化进行了分析和总结。