University Industry Research Centers Research Articles

Integrating multiple goals in university-industry collaborations

Pursuing multiple goals is difficult for organizations because goals can conflict with one another and some goals may not be seen as feasible or desirable to pursue. Whereas some academic institutions successfully contribute to both high quality research and industrial innovation, new collaborations often struggle to balance between these multiple goals. We study the process of establishing six university-industry research centers and explore how the academic partners pursued goals related to innovation in addition to the traditional goals of academic research. We found that during the initial phase of the collaboration the innovation-oriented goals were not prioritized, and the research organizations were bolstering their research-oriented goals. Increasing pressure from industry partners forced the research organizations to develop new hybrid practices that also incorporated innovation-oriented goals alongside the academic ones. By outlining how multiple goals were integrated to create hybrid innovation practices we provide novel theorizing on how university-industry collaborations are formed and we contribute to the literature on how organizations integrate multiple and partly contradictory goals.

Science policy implementation: strategic versus technical human resource management

AbstractScience commercialization in the context of USA research universities suggests that strategic human resources management (SHRM) theory practices should be considered cautiously. The primary reason being that the organizational and human resources strategies of many USA research universities has increasingly diverged; the secondary reason being that this will not be changing anytime soon. Using qualitative and quantitative information from a purposive sample of twenty-one university–industry research centers established by the US National Science Foundation, we present evidence that what the SHRM literature refers to as ‘technical’ human resource management (HRM) practice is perhaps more important to organizational performance than what the SHRM literature refers to as ‘strategic’ HRM practice. Relatedly, the cases suggest that university research center managers should consider leadership styles and network management approaches and established human resource (HR) practices, which may produce the results the plethora of strategic research commercialization initiatives at universities strive to achieve.

The role of proximity dimensions and mutual commitment in shaping the performance of university-industry research centres

ABSTRACT Based on a longitudinal study of two university-industry research centres, this paper examines how proximity along the dimensions of social and cognitive proximity and mutual commitment enables partners to comply with the research centres’ goals of developing academic publications and innovations. We propose that social and cognitive proximity are equally important for complying with the goals, and we identify how these proximities co-evolve with actors’ activities and interactions over time. Our main contributions are linked to the relationships among these proximities where repeated contact (social proximity) and mutual commitment are found to be key enablers for developing mutual understanding (cognitive proximity) between firms and university partners.

Protecting Scientists from Gordon Gekko: How Organizations Use Hybrid Spaces to Engage with Multiple Institutional Logics

Previous work on institutional complexity has discussed two solutions that organizations internally deploy when externally engaging with multiple institutional logics: blended hybrids, in which logics are combined throughout the organization, and structural hybrids, in which different logics dominate in different compartments within the organization. While blended hybrids have been extensively investigated, few studies have examined how structural hybrids are constructed and maintained. We address this imbalance by studying university–industry research centers as instances of distinct organizational spaces used to engage with a minority logic. We found that these spaces require three kinds of work: (a) leveraging, where dominant logic practices are drawn on to achieve minority logic objectives; (b) hybridizing, where the practices inside the space are modified to allow engagement with the minority logic; and (c) bolstering, where the space is shielded against excessive minority logic influence and anchored back into the organization. Furthermore, contrary to the existing literature, we found that the spaces were hybrid, rather than being dominated by a single logic. Our finding is likely generalizable across many instances of structural hybrids given the integration problems that organizations with pure single logic spaces would face, combined with the usefulness of hybrid spaces. Our study is novel in revealing the work needed to sustain hybrid spaces and questioning the previously held conceptualization of structural hybrids as made up of single-logic compartments. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1228 .

Benefiting from Institutional Complexity: How Organizations Engage with Minority Logics

Institutional complexity – being simultaneously exposed to multiple institutional logics – is commonly perceived as a challenge for organizations. We argue that, contrary to this assumption, complexity also represents an opportunity for organizations to accrue benefits and hence they may strategically expose themselves to institutional complexity. Using an inductive study of university-industry research centers, we illustrate how research universities obtained benefits by embracing a minority logic (the commercial logic) while remaining committed to their dominant logic (the academic logic). This was achieved by creating special boundary spaces where institutional complexity was carefully managed. We find that minority logic engagement occurs via three mechanisms: (a) logics leveraging whereby dominant logic practices are used to achieve minority logic objectives; (b) creating a minority logic capability confined to a boundary space; and (c) managing compatibility with the dominant logic through the maintenance of a dominant logic representation in the boundary space. Throughout this process, the presence of hybrid leaders who are steeped in both logics is vital as they put the above mechanisms in place and maintain them over time.

Creating a Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine by Elizabeth Popp Berman (review)

Reviewed by: Creating a Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine by Elizabeth Popp Berman Martin Kenney (bio) Creating a Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine. By Elizabeth Popp Berman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Pp. x+ 265. $35. After World War II, the United States embarked on the creation of the federal grant-supported research university. The intellectual leaders for this expansion, epitomized by Vannevar Bush, promised that government-funded university basic research would lead to commercial products and even new industries (for a discussion of this period, see David M. Hart, Forged Consensus, 1998). They assumed that this translation would occur through some vague and undefined diffusion process. The premise of this book is that in the 1970s a new market-based logic was adopted, one driven by an emerging conviction among governmental policy makers that innovation was the remedy for the flagging economy. This was coupled with the belief that university research was a fount of invention. Elizabeth Berman examines the goals, context, and diffusion of policy initiatives that federal and, to a more limited degree, state governments launched encouraging the acceptance of a transfer-based logic for university research. To illustrate this market logic, she selects three case studies. The first is the commercialization from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s of molecular biology, as its research discoveries became the business of “biotechnology.” While the historical material is mostly already known (for example, Sally S. Hughes, Genentech, 2011; Martin Kenney, Biotechnology: The University Industrial Complex, 1986; Eric Vettel, Biotech: The Countercultural Origins of an Industry, 2008), Berman contextualizes this process, relating it to her larger thesis about the diffusion of a market-based logic and to other developments in innovation-related fields, including the growth in venture capital after the lowering of capital gains taxes and, especially, the liberalization of restrictions on pension-fund investment into venture capital. The next case explores changes in U.S. patent law, especially the passage of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act granting ownership of any intellectual property developed by government contractors, including universities. [End Page 1032] While this topic was covered extensively by Thomas Mowery et al., Ivory Tower and Industrial Innovation (2004), Berman summarizes her earlier contributions on the motivations and background of the act. This case is pivotal for her thesis and readers interested in the details regarding the Bayh-Dole Act should consult her 2008 article, “Why Did Universities Start Patenting? Institution-Building and the Road to the Bayh-Dole Act,” Social Studies of Science 38: 835–71. The final case is federal government and later state-run initiatives to support the establishment of university/industry research centers (UIRCs). Berman relates the remarkable growth in the number of these centers to efforts to encourage university-industry interaction. Because the UIRCs were normally not in the biosciences, this extends her argument more broadly. The variety, incoherence, and mixed survival record of UIRCs make them fit far less comfortably within her overall thesis. In addition, seven other cases of government policy intended to instill a market logic into universities are examined. This is a major contribution to understanding the changes in the U.S. political economy and the role of universities in terms of a heightened emphasis on “innovation” and research translation. Importantly, Berman critiques the casual and causal attribution of this change to “neoliberalism,” because it was not accompanied by research budget cuts and government-mandated metrics and assessment exercises. Rather, it was an inchoate mélange of initiatives, policies, and incentives to encourage innovation. This book reminded me of the Buffalo Springfield lyrics written at the time: “There’s something happening here/But what it is ain’t exactly clear.” Certainly, the changes Berman documents were meant to drive the market logic deeper into the research university. There are now technology transfer offices, more patents, greater professorial entrepreneurship, increased emphasis on securing industrial support, and insistent pledges of the paramount importance of interaction with industry, but how much has the university changed? Industrial research support from industry never increased to even 10 percent of research budgets. How much of the market logic is just rhetoric or even a deeply held...

Creating innovative opportunities through research collaboration: An evolutionary framework and empirical illustration in engineering

This paper analyses the creation of innovative opportunities through research collaborations. It contributes by (i) providing an evolutionary conceptual framework for the formation and exploitation of innovative opportunities through research collaboration; and by (ii) providing an empirical illustration of this framework by applying it to a case study of firms׳ research collaboration taking place in university–industry research centers in engineering. The evolutionary framework developed specifically focuses on the generation of novelty and variety and on selection pressures as key for the creation of opportunities. It also emphasizes the differences between small and large firms when it comes to role of research collaboration for opportunity creation. Empirically, we illustrate that firms in general focus more on the generation of variety in the form of (fundamental) knowledge, than on research collaboration leading directly to the formation and exploitation of opportunities. For large firms, the focus is rather to transfer this created variety back to the firm, to use for inputs into the in-house creation of opportunities. In contrast, small firms focus instead on using research collaboration to generate and develop knowledge about customer needs in order to create market opportunities, especially through networking with large firms participating in the collaboration.

Innovation and value creation in university–industry research centres in the Canadian forest products industry

As the forest products industry evolves into a modern industry based on cutting-edge industrial and management research, the prevalence and importance of university research centres have gained importance. Although there has been increased funding and attention given to university–industry research centres from policy makers and researchers, little is still known about the benefits or value that these collaborations provide and create for firms. Applied academic research requires the active participation of researchers and practitioners. In the Canadian forest products industry, there are other important actors that need to be considered, the federal and provincial governments as owners and regulators of the resource and funders of research and development projects and intermediary organisations who are often charged with transforming academic results into tools and methods able to be implemented into industry firms. This paper presents the results of three comparative case studies of university–industry research centres operating in the Canadian forest products industry through an exploration of their knowledge and technology transfer processes. The goal is to better understand the value that has been created for the four main groups of actors involved though informal and formal transfer processes and which processes are best suited for different types of knowledge.

New forms of strategic research collaboration between firms and universities in the German research system

Due to the shorter life cycles of products and services, industrial research and development (R&D) has been carried out since the 1990s under the criterion of short-term utilisation. Since a few years, however, it can be observed that large enterprises in particular are trying to establish long-term oriented strategic R&D capacities in cooperation with universities. Based on role models like the university-industry research centres in the USA, centres of excellence or competence research centres, this paper focuses on recent developments in Germany in the field of new organisational modes of industrial-university research. It will analyse new public-private research partnerships between industry and universities in Germany and will address the question whether the new mode of collaboration between industry and universities will develop as a new element in the German research system.

Measuring value in the innovation processes of university-industry research centres

There is increasing interest in new research relationships in the form of university-industry partnerships, by governments, universities, intermediary organisations and industry. These collaborations create value, however the value perceived, created and captured by the different actors in the innovation value network are different. However, based on the literature we can say that these values have to be present for all actors, at each phase, for the innovation process to continue. This paper presents a framework that illustrates a multi-actor view of the innovation process and associated values. It is hoped that this matrix can lead to new insight for researchers, practitioners and policy makers to manage better the innovation value network by facilitating the five phases of the innovation value network: policy making and grant process, idea generation and basic research, knowledge and technology development, knowledge and technology transfer and application of knowledge and technologies created by these research centres.

University–industry relationships and open innovation: Towards a research agenda

Organizations increasingly rely on external sources of innovation via inter‐organizational network relationships. This paper explores the diffusion and characteristics of collaborative relationships between universities and industry, and develops a research agenda informed by an ‘open innovation’ perspective. A framework is proposed, distinguishing university–industry relationships from other mechanisms such as technology transfer or human mobility. On the basis of the existing body of research, the role of practices such as collaborative research, university–industry research centres, contract research and academic consulting is analysed. The evidence suggests that such university–industry relationships are widely practised, whereby differences exist across industries and scientific disciplines. While most existing research focuses on the effects of university–industry links on innovation‐specific variables such as patents or firm innovativeness, the organizational dynamics of these relationships remain under‐researched. A detailed research agenda addresses research needs in two main areas: search and match processes between universities and firms, and the organization and management of collaborative relationships.

Researchers’ Industry Experience and Productivity in University–Industry Research Centers: A “Scientific and Technical Human Capital” Explanation

We examine the impact of researchers’ previous industry experience on the research outputs and outcomes of university faculty affiliated with NSF and DOE research centers. Using a dataset combining curriculum vita and surveys, our results indicate significant differences between the researchers who have previous industry experience and those who do not. Using a simple model of research productivity, we found that academic researchers who had prior industry exposure produce fewer total career publications, but they support more students. Most important, and perhaps surprising, we could not establish any difference between the two groups’ publication activity when focusing on a five-year cross-section (years 1996–2000) rather than total career publications. We found statistical evidence that previous industry experience raised the annual publication productivity of junior faculty members and women researchers in our sample of research center personnel. We believe the unique blend of research center affiliation, academic post, and past industry experience gives an individual who embodies or possesses all three characteristics a diverse source of scientific and technical human capital and particular advantages over those who have no industry experience (though the “academic-only” set also has particular advantages in cumulative publishing productivity).

Building social capital and learning environment in university?industry relationships

University–industry interactions have become an important phenomenon in recent years. Universities are viewed as engines of economic growth in the era of a knowledge economy. The recent literature on this topic is somewhat restrictive, as it has taken a resource-based view. We have argued here that an often over looked contribution that a university can make in its relationships with industrial firms is the building of social capital. On the basis of a study of university-industry research centres in the US, we have identified three dimensions of the interaction patterns analogous to the dimensions of social capital in terms of communication structure, sharing of visions and priorities, and building of a trusting relationship. We also explore the factors that help build these dimensions and their effect.

Role of the university in regional economic development: the US experience

Universities have traditionally played a dual role in the nation's innovation system. On the one hand, they enhance the stocks of knowledge and human capital through research and teaching. On the other hand, universities indirectly contribute to innovation in industry and economic growth. In the past few decades, many universities have formally incorporated regional economic development into their mission statements, and in response have spawned impressive growth in university technology transfer mechanisms, such as university-industry research centres, sponsored research, and on-campus licensing and commercialisation activities. These efforts have resulted in a substantial increase in industry support for university research, but the critics argue that selling research for dollars contaminates academic science and shrinks the academic commons. This paper examines evidence that universities contribute to regional economic growth by emphasising strong science research, contributing to human capital investments, and by making the ideas freely available to society. Regions grow when they have the infrastructure and skilled people to absorb the new ideas and turn them into commercial products. University technology transfer initiatives can aid the dissemination and absorption of new knowledge, and thus contribute to economic development, but also they have the potential to shorten time horizons if they place too much emphasis on the profit motive in allocating university resources. The paper concludes that universities need to take strong measures to protect the academic commons by assuring that the funds from commercial activities are used to support the long-term research and teaching missions of the university.

University-Industry Research Centres and Regional Development: Matching Applied Research to Hong Kong's Nascent Multimedia Industry

(2000). University-Industry Research Centres and Regional Development: Matching Applied Research to Hong Kong's Nascent Multimedia Industry. Regional Studies: Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 494-499.

Technology Transfer from University-Based Research Centers

Since the 1980s American research universities have become increasingly involved in such technology transfer activities as technology business incubators (Mian, 1997), technology licensing offices (Massing, 1996), and technology parks. Another expression of academic capitalism (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997) in facilitating the transfer of technological innovations in order to contribute to local economic development (and to acquire increased funding for research) is through university-based research centers. The number of these organized research units has increased rapidly in recent decades (Cohen, Florida, & Gee, 1994). Research centers obtain much of their funding from sources external to the university and serve a boundary-spanning function in facilitating flows of information and resources between the university and its environment. The present article reports findings from an investigation of technology transfer from all 55 research centers at one research university, the University of New Mexico (UNM), which is located in technology-rich Northern New Mexico. We gathered data from each research center in order to answer the following research questions. 1. What is the nature of the typical research center at the University of New Mexico? 2. Why have the number of research centers, and their total funding, been increasing rapidly at the University of New Mexico during the 1990s? 3. Why are research centers founded? 4. What is the role of the director in creating and maintaining a research center? 5. How do university-based research centers transfer technology to private companies and to other organizations? 6. What determines the effectiveness of research centers in reaching their objectives? Past Research on Research Centers Considerable research has been conducted on various types of university-based research centers in science and engineering that are funded (at least initially and partially) by the National Science Foundation (for example, Eveland, 1985; Feller & Roesner, 1995; Gibson & Harlan, 1995; Gray, Gidley, & Koester, 1988; Gray, Hetzner, Eveland, & Gidley, 1986; Gray, Johnson, & Gidley, 1986; Grillon, 1995; Morgan, 1993; Tash & Stahler, 1997). However, research centers supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) comprise 1% or 2% of all university-based research centers (at the University of New Mexico only 1 of the 55 research centers was NSF-initiated). Much less scholarly research attention has been directed to university-based research centers in science and engineering that are not supported by the NSF. A 1990 nationwide survey of university-industry research centers in U.S. universities estimated that 12,000 professors and 22,300 doctoral-level researchers were involved, with total funding of $4.12 billion (Cohen et al., 1994). These are underestimates because the study by Cohen et al. only included research centers in science and engineering, which on the basis of available data we estimate are approximately half of all university-based research centers today. Tash and Stahler (1997) gathered survey data from 287 research centers that received industrial support at 114 of the 150 leading U.S. research universities. Most of the 287 research centers of study were in science and engineering fields. Our literature search disclosed no investigation of all the research centers at a single university, including those organized research units in the social sciences, medicine, education, law, and other fields. Technology is information put into use in order to carry out some task. Technology transfer is the application of information into use (Rogers, 1995). The information that is transferred results from research that is conducted, perhaps in order for it to be applied to the development and commercialization of new or improved products or services that are sold in the marketplace by private companies (Matkin, 1990). …

University-Industry Interaction in the Ontario Centres of Excellence

Introduction The issue of corporate-university linkages and university research has been at the forefront in Canadian higher education since the late 1980s, when a consensus emerged among government, industry, and universities that knowledge and highly qualified people are two main components in achieving economic growth. According to this consensus, universities through their role as creators and disseminators of new knowledge as well as through the provision of highly qualified people have a pivotal role to play in the economic development process. There are a multitude of reasons for sharply focused attention on corporate-university linkages in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Primary among them is the changing nature of the economy (industrial to information), shifts in the nature and rate of technological change, the emergence of competitive global markets, and increased competitiveness. The development, or enhancement, of alliances among universities, industry, and government is widely seen as the prescription for the malaise. There exist many different institutional forms of corporate-university linkages [17, pp. 25-40]. The resurgence of interest in corporate-university linkages and university research, however, has led to the proliferation of one form of linkage - university-based or university-connected research centres [19, pp. 278-279; 38, p. 5]. In Canada, this resurgence has manifested itself in an alliance between university, industry, and government in the creation and funding of Centres of Excellence [39, p. 28]. The term Centre of Excellence, however, is neither new nor unique. It has been used to describe government programs to promote the developnment of advanced technology in the states of Massachusetts [28] and Utah [44] as well as to describe a number of academic and research programs at various Canadian universities [22, p. 35]. Centres of Excellence may also be known as University-Industry Research Centres (UIRC), Science and Technology Centres (STC), or Organized Research Units (ORU). The in centre of excellence refers to a model for conducting research that has a long history in universities. Internal university research centres facilitate networking between groups of scholars in one or more departments and/or universities who are teaching or researching in similar areas [13, pp. 80-83; 20, pp. 49-50; 23, pp. 1-28]. However, as applied to the fostering and enhancement of corporate-university research linkages, the centre model was first used in the early 1970s, when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded various program models to promote collaborative industry-university research [21, 33]. In 1987 the Government of Ontario embarked on an ambitious five-year, $204 million program, creating seven Centres of Excellence.(1) After a successful review, the program was extended for a further five years and allocated an additional $200 million in funding [31]. In 1989 the Government of Canada followed suit and launched a five-year, $240 million program, creating fifteen Networks of Centres of Excellence [24]. This program was extended for a further five years and allocated an additional sum of $197 million, although only ten of the fourteen Centres were re-funded. The underlying assumption in the creation and financing of the Ontario Centres and other UIRCs is that industry and university scientists will interact, that technology transfer will take place, and that as a result industry will become more competitive. Evidence regarding the effectiveness of university-industry research relationships, and in particular UIRCs and the Ontario Centres, in terms of technology transfer to industry is mixed [17, p. 13; 43, pp. 53-70]. The data that refute the claims raise questions with respect to the cost effectiveness of universities and the ability of universities to enhance the competitiveness of industry [5, 41, 42, pp. 5-24]. The data to substantiate the effectiveness of UIRCs is contradictory. …

The role of the research university in the spin-off of high-technology companies

A new type of university—industry relationship has developed in the 1980s that centers around the process of technology transfer from research universities to private firms. One expression of this new, closer relationship is the several university—industry research centers in microelectronics, of which the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) in Austin, Texas is the most noted example. The universities, private companies, and federal, state, and local governments all seem to benefit from the new university—industry relationships, but certain problems may accompany these benefits. The main hope-for result of industry—university collaboration is the rise of high-technology spin-off firms. The information technologies produced by the microelectronics industry are driving the Information Society.