Does the University Third Mission Entail Sustainability Science: Evidence from Indian Higher Educational Institutions’ Sustainable Technological Patenting Activity and Collaborations

Abstract

This paper explores the vision of “University Third Mission” on the emergence of “Sustainable Science”. We aim to track environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) patent trends, proportionate players, collaborative players of higher educational institutions. The patentscope database and green patent inventory of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO )is utilized to extract patent filings details of Indian Universities and Indian Institutes of Technologies(IITs), thus totally 930 institutions for the period of 14 years. After the cleaning process, data visualization tools and technique like Gephi, are applied on data to check collaboration patterns using centrality measures and excel for charts. We find that overall patenting trends are increasing; yet ESTs patent filings are low. Only a meager number of institutions are active and a handful of institutions have the collaboration record showing the research for sustainability is something to embrace. Status of current research output shall equip the policymakers and university management to design future research agenda and strategies to execute the university third mission and to contribute for sustainable development. This research brings new thoughts on university research for sustainable development and adds value within university third mission; it focuses on Technologies for sustainable development filings, micro level players and their collaboration patterns.