Final Report Summary - TRACK (Transferring academic knowledge)
Industry engagement is high on the agenda for higher education institutions as it helps to justify public investment in research. Beginning with the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5), the European Union (EU) paid special attention to the dissemination of academic results to the market. Given its strategic importance, this action will be core in both the Europe 2020 strategy and the EU funding programme Horizon 2020.
Scholarly work investigating this topic has so far focused on the most visible forms of knowledge-transfer (KT) activities, based on the commercialisation of technologies protected by intellectual property (IP), such as patenting and licensing. While these activities are clearly important, less attention has been paid to other types of engagement not based on the commercialisation of IP rights, including collaborative research and consulting. Even though the latter are more common, research tended to underestimate their impact. Moreover, the vast majority of the extant research on KT activities is related to the United-States (US) context and very scant evidence has been reported from the EU. In addition, there is virtually no research based on longitudinal data, simultaneously modelling, individual, organisational and institutional dimensions.
The present research has sought to fill these shortcomings. More specifically, Dr Fini, Prof. Autio and colleagues from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group of Imperial College Business School have:
(a) gathered new longitudinal data on KT activities undertaken by a representative sample of academics in the United Kingdom;
(b) complemented this information with longitudinal evidence of academics' research productivity and individual characteristics;
(c) identified departmental, school and institutional mechanisms put in place to support KT activities.
Between June 2010 and November 2011, the research team has built a unique database, including the complete list of IP and non-IP-based KT activities delivered by the population of 20 000 individuals who worked at Imperial College London between 2000 and 2010. Using archival data, we have retrieved information on more than 6 000 patents, more than 70 spin-offs, and almost 3 000 collaboration activities with industrial partners. We have complemented such data with evidence on almost 250 000 publications, as well as more than 80 000 classes taught by Imperial academics.
Results show that a large body of KT activities occurs outside the IP system. These are bigger in size and occur more frequently when compared to the IP-based ones. Moreover, during the academic lifecycle, research related activities complement the engagement in IP-based KT activities whereas teaching efforts act as substitutes (vice-versa for the non-IP-based ones). Finally, both individual and institutional characteristics, as well as their interactions, determine how and to what extent academics engage in KT activities.
It than follows that, policies meant to stimulate only formal IP-based KT activities might fail to influence and support entire categories of researchers as well as academic disciplines. Moreover, to properly understand the determinants of engagement by academics in KT activities, time-variant multi-level dimensions, as well as their interactions, have to be considered simultaneously. Finally, individual characteristics and institutional logics, as well as their interactions over the academic lifecycle, have to be considered to properly explain the engagement in KT activities.
Scholarly work investigating this topic has so far focused on the most visible forms of knowledge-transfer (KT) activities, based on the commercialisation of technologies protected by intellectual property (IP), such as patenting and licensing. While these activities are clearly important, less attention has been paid to other types of engagement not based on the commercialisation of IP rights, including collaborative research and consulting. Even though the latter are more common, research tended to underestimate their impact. Moreover, the vast majority of the extant research on KT activities is related to the United-States (US) context and very scant evidence has been reported from the EU. In addition, there is virtually no research based on longitudinal data, simultaneously modelling, individual, organisational and institutional dimensions.
The present research has sought to fill these shortcomings. More specifically, Dr Fini, Prof. Autio and colleagues from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group of Imperial College Business School have:
(a) gathered new longitudinal data on KT activities undertaken by a representative sample of academics in the United Kingdom;
(b) complemented this information with longitudinal evidence of academics' research productivity and individual characteristics;
(c) identified departmental, school and institutional mechanisms put in place to support KT activities.
Between June 2010 and November 2011, the research team has built a unique database, including the complete list of IP and non-IP-based KT activities delivered by the population of 20 000 individuals who worked at Imperial College London between 2000 and 2010. Using archival data, we have retrieved information on more than 6 000 patents, more than 70 spin-offs, and almost 3 000 collaboration activities with industrial partners. We have complemented such data with evidence on almost 250 000 publications, as well as more than 80 000 classes taught by Imperial academics.
Results show that a large body of KT activities occurs outside the IP system. These are bigger in size and occur more frequently when compared to the IP-based ones. Moreover, during the academic lifecycle, research related activities complement the engagement in IP-based KT activities whereas teaching efforts act as substitutes (vice-versa for the non-IP-based ones). Finally, both individual and institutional characteristics, as well as their interactions, determine how and to what extent academics engage in KT activities.
It than follows that, policies meant to stimulate only formal IP-based KT activities might fail to influence and support entire categories of researchers as well as academic disciplines. Moreover, to properly understand the determinants of engagement by academics in KT activities, time-variant multi-level dimensions, as well as their interactions, have to be considered simultaneously. Finally, individual characteristics and institutional logics, as well as their interactions over the academic lifecycle, have to be considered to properly explain the engagement in KT activities.