THE CHANGING APPROACH IN ACADEMIA-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION: FROM PROFIT ORIENTATION TO INNOVATION SUPPORT

Abstract

1. Introduction The transformation of a country into a knowledge-based economy (KBE) is equally important to modern Western countries as well as to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, which radically changed their political and order at the beginning of the 1990s. It is accompanied by a considerable impact on the functioning of society. At the EU level, KBE describes economic activity that relies not on 'natural' resources (like land or minerals) but on intellectual resources such as know-how and expertise (COM (2008) 466:3). According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the concept of KBE describes which are directly based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information. This is reflected in the trend in OECD economies towards growth in high-technology investments, high-technology industries, more highly-skilled labor and associated productivity gains (OCDE/GD (96) 102, 1996:7). It is true that [o]ne of the characteristic features of the knowledge economy is that universities and public organizations are becoming increasingly engaged in the utilization of research (Ulf Petrusson 2011:73). Therefore, the development of efficient academia-industry collaboration is a key issue in a well-functioning knowledge-based economy (Kelli and Pisuke 2008:223238). In this article, the terms 'academia' and 'university' are used in the broad meaning, including universities and other organizations. The Europe 2020 Strategy underlines that education, and innovation are key drivers for competitiveness, jobs, sustainable growth and social progress. It also requires promoting and reinforcing cooperation between academia and industry at the EU and national levels (COM (2010) 2020:13). The People Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme (2007 to 2013) contains Academia-Industry Pathways and Partnerships activity as one of the Marie Curie Actions. The aim of the activity is to enhance the human capacity of industry-academia cooperation in the fields of training, career development and knowledge sharing, taking also into account the protection of intellectual property rights (C (2011) 5033:4). Therefore, the stakeholder organizations are expected to develop and implement structured programs to increase mobility between academia and industry (COM (2012) 392). The Draft Horizon 2020--the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020)--also supports and innovation cooperation between universities, institutions and enterprises as important measure to ensure optimum development and dynamic use of European intellectual capital in order to generate and transfer new skills and innovation. At the same time effective industry-academia links, as well as the development and implementation of and innovation agendas also through public-private partnerships, are considered to be essential in addressing competitiveness (COM (2011) 809:43-44, 48, 63). The Horizon 2020 Programme puts emphasis on the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) in financing European research. KIC is defined as an autonomous partnership of higher education institutions, organizations, companies and other stakeholders in the innovation process in the of a strategic network based on joint mid- to long-term innovation planning to achieve the EIT challenges, regardless of its precise legal form (Article 2 of the Regulation (EC) No. 294/2008). Therefore, it is important to distinguish between different players in the European and industry policy. The exploitation of the results of university could be a major driving force behind innovation which is the core value-creating process in a knowledge-based economy (for further discussion, see Etzkowitz 2001:18-29, Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000:109-123). However, the role of academia is not always adequately and sufficiently conceptualized by policy-makers, which leads to deficiencies in knowledge management by the university and thereby constitutes obstacle to academia industry cooperation (for further discussion, see Formica et al. …