Analysis of the researcher's motivators to collaborate with firms as drivers of the triple helix dynamics

Abstract

This paper advances the study of the researcher's motivators to collaborate with firms from a triple helix perspective. Based on a conceptual framework that relates the agency theory assumptions with those variables that literature considers as motivators of the researchers and firms to collaborate, we worked with a sample of 420 research groups of eight regions of Spain, France and Portugal. First, we studied the determinants of the researchers' interest to collaborate and then, among those researchers who were previously interested, we studied if the determinants of the final engagement in private contracts of science commercialisation were the same than the determinants of the researchers' previous interest. Results suggest that the field of science is important in signalling those research groups more interested in collaborating, the research budget is a good motivator of the interest and final engagement of the researchers, previous experience in collaboration increases the future interest of researchers and country also matters.