THE INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL SUPPLY, DEMAND AND COMPETITION FACTORS ON THE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER OUTCOMES OF UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

We use survey data for up to 292 universities in 17 European countries to examine the influence of the employment share in knowledge-intensive services (KIS), location in a metropolitan region, and competition from other universities and research institutes in the same region on three measures of university knowledge transfer outcomes: the number of research agreements, licensing, and the number of start-ups. The results show that the KIS employment share has a positive correlation with the number of start-ups, while the location in a metropolitan region is positively correlated with the number of research agreements. Competition from quality-weighted universities in the same region as the focal university decreases the number of research and licensing agreements, although the highest-ranked 13.4% of universities benefit from the regional co-location of other high-quality universities for license income. The number of research institutes in the same region is unrelated to the number of research agreements, licenses and start-ups, but has a positive effect on license income. These results suggest that universities compete with top-ranked universities for regional demand for knowledge.