University-industry Cooperation Research Articles

Key licensing technologies for patents based on university– industry collaboration

PurposeAs the university–industry collaboration (UIC) gradually attracts the attention of various national governments, the number of studies on UIC has increased substantially. Past UIC studies have mostly focused on investigating the incentives and the motivation for UIC, forms of UIC and performance output of UIC. However, they have not actively identified the key technologies and technology distribution that are conductive to the commercialization of UIC outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to adopt the licensed UIC patents as the basis for analysis and to construct a patent licensing technology network.Design/methodology/approachThis study focused on licensed patents because past studies have indicated that such patents usually have higher value. Moreover, patent licensing can be seen as the final step for the commercialization of UIC outcomes. Finally, past studies have rarely explored patent examiners’ views on key technologies. However, during the substantive examination of patents, patent examiners often use their background knowledge regarding the technology to include citations to other patented technologies that they consider valuable or indispensable. Therefore, this study focused on investigating the patents recognized and cited by patent examiners and conducted key technology identification.FindingsThe results indicated that past key technologies in UIC focused on surveying, medicine, biochemistry and electric digital data processing; these fields are crucial to the commercialization of key UIC technologies. Finally, the USA, Japan, Sweden and Germany play critical roles in the network of global university–industry cooperation and technology licensing.Originality/valuePatent examiners’ perspectives were adopted to establish a patent licensing technology network, through which the key technologies that could promote UIC patent licensing were mined. This study can also serve as a reference for resource allocation in university research and development and for governments to promote new technologies.

Development of Educational Programs for System Creators and Business Producers in Future Strategy Design Based on Action Project Group Activities through Industry-University Cooperation

Development of Educational Programs for System Creators and Business Producers in Future Strategy Design Based on Action Project Group Activities through Industry-University Cooperation

A Methodology of Partner Selection for Sustainable Industry-University Cooperation Based on LDA Topic Model

In today’s knowledge-based society, industry-university cooperation (IUC) is recognized as an effective tool for technological innovation. Many studies have shown that selecting the right partner is essential to the success of the IUC. Although there have been a lot of studies on the criteria for selecting a suitable partner for IUC or strategic alliances, there has been a problem of making decisions depending on the qualitative judgment of experts or staff. While related works using patent analysis enabled the quantitative analysis and comparison of potential research partners, they overlooked the fact that there are several sub-technologies in one specific technology domain and that the applicant’s research concentration and competency are not the same for every sub-technology. This study suggests a systematic methodology that combines the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model and the clustering algorithm in order to classify the sub-technology categories of a particular technology domain, and identifies the best college partners in each category. In addition, a similar-patent density (SPD) index was proposed and utilized for an objective comparison of potential university partners. In order to investigate the practical applicability of the proposed methodology, we conducted experiments using real patent data on the electric vehicle domain obtained from the Korean Intellectual Property Office. As a result, we identified 10 research and development sectors wherein Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) focuses using LDA and clustering. The universities with the highest values of SPD for each sector were chosen to be the most suitable partners of HMC for collaborative research.

Academia-industry collaboration and regional innovation convergence in China

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the impact of academia-industry collaboration (AIC) on regional innovation convergence in China from the perspective of innovation ecosystem. Using the methods of σ-convergence and β-convergence, we explore the effect of AIC on innovation convergence among provinces over time, taking into account of the flow of talents, regional economic development level and degree of openness. AIC is classified into two types: university-industry cooperation (UIC) and industry-research-institute cooperation (IRC). We find that while innovation performance is divergent across regions, AIC can significantly weaken the divergence, and the effect of UIC on the convergence is especially obvious. After dividing the country into eastern, central and western subsamples, we find that AIC significantly promotes regional innovation convergence in the central area. Both UIC and IRC significantly inhibit innovation divergence in the central sample. Furthermore, UIC also shows the same effect in the western sample.

Qualitative Analysis of Satisfying and Dissatisfying Factors in a University–Industry Cooperation Programme

Using qualitative semistructured interviews, this study aims to analyse the satisfying and dissatisfying factors in a university–industry cooperation programme. Work experience, monetary benefit, HR policies, language and time are important factors determining the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of students towards a university–industry cooperation programme. Results help in evaluating and identifying the sustainability of a programme. Marketing practitioners can consider the results in designing corresponding marketing strategies, and HR managers and programme coordinators can formulate guidelines for future improvements of related programmes.

How Resources of Universities influence Industry Cooperation

In Korea, cooperation between university and company is mainly encouraged by government policy as the Triple Helix’s statist model. Since 2003, the government started a variety of university financial support program, and in 2014, it reached to the point that 31 ministries conducted 408 programs in total. Most projects focused on training human resources and supporting Research and development, which is considered as the core function of universities, but some of the projects are designed to support the industry–academia cooperation. For instance, the Ministry of Education ran ‘Leaders in University and Industry Cooperation (LINC)’ program. LINC is a follow-up project of Human Resources Development for the Leading Industries, Industry–Academia Cooperation-oriented University, and Focal Point Research program. Accordingly, it aimed to create university–industry cooperative models, and nurture talents based on regional economy’s demand. The program provided approximately $230M per year for over 50 universities across the country. It was one of the highly influential grant programs considering the fact that there are about 200 universities nationwide and an annual budget of university is $900 billion on average. In this context, this study is to assess the influence of resources of universities capacity on the achievement of university–industry cooperation and explore whether a government-initiated policy has a significant effect using data from government information disclosure system on education.

Internal barriers to innovation and university-industry cooperation among technology-based SMEs in Brazil

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the association between internal barriers to innovation and the propensity of technology-based SMEs to cooperate with universities and research institutes (URIs). We examine empirically two types of internal company barriers – financial and knowledge obstacles to innovation. The data source is the latest edition of the Brazilian Innovation Survey (PINTEC). We analyse the full sample of technology-based SMEs as well as the subsamples of high-tech manufacturing companies and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Financial obstacles are shown to be strongly related to the propensity of KIBS to collaborate with URIs. Knowledge obstacles are moderately related to the propensity of high-tech manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with URIs. We conclude that while URIs have other important roles in the techno-economic system, their perceived contribution to alleviating internal innovation barriers for technology-based SMEs may be less prominent than policy decision-makers in emerging economies may expect.

일학습병행제가 산학협력의 지속성과 밀착도, 만족도에 미치는 영향 연구

This study we tried to find ways to improve satisfaction of industry-university cooperation and to achieve virtuous and industrial cooperation by analyzing the effects of workplace and learning dual system on the sustainability and adherency degree between companies and universities.BR Hypothesis verification shows that two factors, including business performance and joint training center support of the workplace and learning dual system, significantly affect the sustainability of industry-university cooperation and satisfaction of industry-university cooperation.BR First of all, we have prepared a theoretical framework for the study of the relationship between the workplace and learning dual system and the industry-university cooperation. Second, we need to emphasize the business performance factor and the support of the joint training center factor. Third, it is necessary to focus more on corporate performance, joint training center support and sustainability of industry-university cooperation in order to improve satisfaction of industry-university cooperation and expand industry-university cooperation activities.

Development of Educational Programs for System Creators and Business Producers in Future Strategy Design in Action Project Group Activities Through Industry-University Cooperation

Our Japanese industry-university project group from Aoyama Gakuin University investigated and studied new educational programs to cultivate “future strategy design” human resources over several years. The purpose of this research paper is to describe two types of educational programs. The first program proposes the system creator, which is capable of new product design and innovative management that uses advanced technologies such as IoT, AI, and augmented and virtual reality. The second program proposes the business producer that is capable of platform service business modeling, product development and strategy, and customer service. The characteristics of these programs involve to apply new educational methods to combine project based learning (PBL) and active learning.

Research for activation of new industry-university cooperation

Research for activation of new industry-university cooperation

Drivers and effects of UIRCs: closing gaps in current research

University-industry research cooperation projects (UIRCs) appear to be a well-explored phenomenon in the field of business research that has been illustrated from different perspectives. However, some of the questions raised by this research are still not addressed adequately. Despite the call for closing important gaps of interests since the early phases of UIRC research, it seems that questions addressed by UIRC research have circled around similar, mostly structural aspects ever since, which has led to severe redundancies within the body research. Our literature review sheds light onto methodological and topic-related redundancies and research gaps in UIRC research and gives implications for further research to close them.

The relationship of student’s motivation, program evaluation, career attitudes and career aspirations in university–industry cooperation program

The number of university–industry cooperation programs has increased rapidly over the last few years. Research in this field is spare. This study therefore explores this gap with particular focus on the relationship of student motivation, evaluation of program, students’ attitudes and career aspirations in tourism and hospitality university–industry cooperation program. Using students from a university–industry cooperation program in Macau as a sample, this study collected 151 usable questionnaires from undergraduate students. The finding of this study enriched the knowledge of the education system relative to students’ behaviors. The implications and recommendations for both hospitality educators and practitioners were also discussed.

The death valley of the university-industry cooperation with universities: from intention to action

Research transfer depends mostly on the firm's goodwill for cooperation. However, very few papers deal with the intentions and attitudes of firm's representatives when they decide to cooperate with universities. Following an outside/in approach, this paper explores firms' attitudes towards R&D cooperation by focusing on the determinants of both having an interest in engaging with universities and the decision to pursue it. Using a sample of 262 firms, we studied the process of the development of interest to the formal decision to collaborate and found that the type of innovative activities carried out by the firm could explain the firm's interest, but not the formal decision to cooperate with universities. In turn, the strategic focus of the firm explained the decision to cooperate with universities. These results reinforce the need to design policies that build relations between researchers and firms at an individual level based on the firm's needs, instead of focusing on the institutional level based on the university's needs.

Evaluation of Internship Practices in Vocational Colleges According to the Views of Academics (Kirklareli University Case)

Within the scope of university-industry cooperation, efforts on the preservation of the updating the educational programs in vocational colleges, re-arrangement of the education programs by determining the requirements of the enterprises and transferring the new technologies of the enterprises to the vocational colleges continue Within this scope, different internship application methods are applied in different universities. The compulsory internship of the student is controlled by the academic staff who are assigned as an internship advisor. Therefore, the first hand feedbacks are gathered by the advisors. For this reason, advisors' views on the practice of compulsory internship practice are an important data that must be referred to accomplish the mission of vocational colleges. In this research, it is aimed to collect the remarks of advisors in vocational colleges affiliated to Kirklareli University with regard to compulsory internship practice and different internship practice methods. The research was carried out in the spring semester of 2017-2018 academic year with the participation of teaching staff of Vocational Colleges of Kirklareli University. A total of 89 teaching staff participated in the research on the basis of volunteerism. Participants' opinions on internship practices were collected through 6 open-ended questions. The research was carried out using the purposive sampling method in qualitative research design and the obtained data were evaluated with the help of content analysis. According to findings, current internship practice was found to be inefficient in terms of the duration of internship, problems caused by workplace, low number of establishments in the region and responsibilities of students. The recommendation of the advisors, to implement a more effective internship, is to improve university-industry cooperation, increase supervision and communication.

연구비 집행 행태가 연구성과에 미치는 영향 : 농식품 국가연구개발사업의 사례

The purpose of this research is to analyze R&D fund expenditure behaviors of the Agri-Food R&D program and to determine the relationship between the program’s research performance and its expenditure behaviors. To that purpose, ANOVA, T-test and Logistic Regression were performed. The results show that the research performance of universities who have Industry-University Cooperation (ICU) Foundations was higher than institutes that did not have ICU Foundations. The project groups with lower carried over funds and higher early spending had higher level of research performance. Based on all of these findings, the research raises some suggestions on R&D management techniques to increase research performance. First, it is important to ensure responsibility in a department or train professionals who can manage R&D fund. Second, it is important to strengthen the procedures of checking spending in order to induce researchers to spend their R&D funds earlier.

Assessing the industrial PhD: Stakeholder insights

Research and practice have called for a change in engineering education towards a more practice-oriented curricula to provide engineers with the skills they need for creating solutions for future challenges. While most studies address undergraduate programs, only little attention has been paid to graduate and post-graduate education. The Industrial PhD is expected to give PhD students on-the-job training to gain practically relevant and professional tacit knowledge and to enhance their set of soft skills. However, the training of practice-relevant methods and knowledge has so far been covered by alternative programs (e.g. traineeships), exclusively organized, financed and conducted by firms, and did not involve the responsibility of universities. Therefore, for the I.PhD, conflict between involved firms and universities can be expected.In order to analyze the potential of the Industrial PhD as an answer to the question of how to effectively make engineering education more practice-oriented, the present study analyses qualitative data on the experience of both industry and university actors with I.PhD programs. Questions on a) the motives and b) the perceived challenges allow valuable insights in the functionality of the I.PhD in terms of its success in its practical conduction. The study results indicate a divergence in the perception of the general value of I.PhD program among both stakeholder groups. Major challenges can be identified, while existing work on PhD training and university-industry research cooperation (UIRC) allow the deduction of success-supporting factors, which can be believed to enhance the effectiveness of I.PhD programs for all parties.

The innovative grant of university–industry–research cooperation

PurposeThis study aims to make government usage of technology research grants more efficient and to evaluate how to use university–industry–research cooperation to promote industrial innovation in Taiwan.Design/methodology/approachThis case study aims to use the triple helix model and other references to develop indicators which can estimate the performance of university–industry–research cooperation in Taiwan. The study selects three facets: “(prior) mechanisms,” “(in-progress) regulations” and “(post-hoc) operations” to find out the critical indicators contributing the final outcome. The study found that a successful university–industry–research cooperation requires the following factors: strengthening review methods for the mechanisms; its relationships of rights and obligations; policy needs in regulations; and plan incentives in operations.FindingsIt is recommended that, to promote university–industry–research cooperation in Taiwan, resource distributors and program management units should not only continue program application incentives and strengthen interdepartmental resource integration, they should also consider the establishment of a fair, just and open review mechanisms, and they should enhance the relationship between the rights and obligations of university–industry–research cooperation.Originality/valueThe study of this program includes application review before, during and after the program, management examination and performance evaluation to formulate recommendations as reference points for resource distributors and grant recipients. And because of industry–university cooperation being the main way of research and technology development, the findings and suggestions of this study may also be helpful for other grant systems in the world.

University-industry cooperation for encouragement of graduating employability – methodology for evaluation

Abstract Employability of graduating students is a main precondition for successful university to work transition. Discrepancies on the labour market in terms of demand and supply of highly qualified specialists, increasing requirements and expectations of recently university graduates towards their future jobs, high speed of technological changes resulting in new jobs for which educations is lagging behind and increasing demand for well-developed transferable skills are some of the main challenges which universities are facing nowadays. Thus, their main priorities shall stress on collaboration that is more effective with industrial companies, resulting in contemporary curricula and development and implementation of new forms of cooperation for encouragement of graduating students’ employability. There are some good practices in Bulgaria for common initiatives leading to better professional orientation and further job placing but there is a lack of overall strategic approach in this field. Therefore, there is a necessity of identification and introduction of new forms of cooperation, which will boost partnership and could provide the labour market with more adequate specialists, matching employers’ recent requirements. The purpose of the paper is to provide a methodology of evaluation of problems in university-industry cooperation for encouragement of graduating students’ employability.The main elements of research of cooperation between universities and industry in Bulgaria include (1) description of possible forms of cooperation, (2) evaluation of industry attitudes for cooperation based on 4 criteria - importance, application, interest for participation and awareness of the forms, (3) comparison of opinions of industry and universities in Bulgaria.

Attitudes of Undergraduate Students from University–Industry Partnership for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Macau

Previous studies described in detail many university–industry programs. The purpose of this paper was to develop a multidimensional and multi-item attitude scale to measure undergraduate tourism students’ attitudes towards working in the tourism industry. This study was a quantitative and exploratory research. This paper describes a scale development process and presents the result of the scale using data collected from a university–industry collaboration program in Macau. This study identified five dimensions, i.e., Interpersonal Relationships, Industry–Person Congeniality, Organizational Climate, Working Condition, and Nature of Work, to measure the students’ attitudes. The proposed measurement scale will help evaluate and identify the sustainability of university–industry cooperation partnerships. Furthermore, the scale will help design marketing strategies to promote such programs. This study identified areas to be improved and provides suggestions to HR managers or educators.

Research subsidies, industry–university cooperation and innovation

We evaluate the impact of the EC's Seventh Framework Programme, a large-scale research subsidy programme, on the innovation activities of subsidized firms, with a particular regard to industry–university partnerships. Using matching and difference-in-difference estimation, we find a positive effect on a range of innovation indicators. The number of project participants in general and university participants in particular positively affect performance, suggesting knowledge spillovers between project members. Research centres, on the other hand, do not exert positive externalities. We also find that the benefits of collaborating with universities are amplified by their academic quality.