Bridging Science and Technology through Academic-Industry Partnerships

Abstract

Scientific research and its translation into commercialized technology is a driver of wealth creation and economic growth. Partnerships to foster such translational processes between public research organizations, such as universities and hospitals, and private firms are a policy tool that has attracted increased interest. Yet questions about the efficacy and the efficiency with which funds are used are subject to frequent debate. This paper examines empirical data from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation (DNATF), an agency that funds partnerships between universities and private companies to develop technologies important to Danish industry. We assess the effect of a unique mediated funding scheme that combines project grants with active facilitation and conflict management on innovative performance, namely the quantity, citation count and collaborative nature of patents and papers, by comparing funded and unfunded firms. Because randomization of the sample was not feasible, we address endogeneity around selection bias using a sample of qualitatively similar firms based on a funding decision score. This allows us to observe the local effect of samples in which we drop the best recipients and the worst non-recipients.