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The Governance of University Knowledge Transfer: A Critical Review of the Literature

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Abstract

Universities have long been involved in knowledge transfer activities. Yet the last 30 years have seen major changes in the governance of university–industry interactions. Knowledge transfer has become a strategic issue: as a source of funding for university research and (rightly or wrongly) as a policy tool for economic development. Universities vary enormously in the extent to which they promote and succeed in commercializing academic research. The identification of clear-cut models of governance for university–industry interactions and knowledge transfer processes is not straightforward. The purpose of this article is to critically discuss university knowledge transfer models and review the recent developments in the literature on research collaborations, intellectual property rights and spin-offs, those forms of knowledge transfer that are more formalized and have been institutionalized in recent years. The article also addresses the role played by university knowledge transfer organizations in promoting commercialization of research results.

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Notes

  1. See, among others, the following Special issues for references: Science and Public Policy 21, 1994; STI Review 23, 1998; Research Policy 29(2), 2000; Management Science 48, 2002; International Journal of Industrial Organization 21, 2003; Economics of Innovation and New Technology 16(2), 2007; Industrial and Corporate Change 16(4), 2007c; Oxford Review of Economic Policy 23(4), 2007; Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 63(4), 2007.

  2. In this context, government was willing to pay for the teaching related part of the universities’ activities, but not the traditional “40% research” part automatically associated with teaching positions in most European HE systems.

  3. E.g., in Arundel and Geuna (2004), “publications” is rated as the most important method for learning about public research outputs by the largest proportion of firms, 24%, followed closely by “hiring trained staff”, 21%, and “informal contacts”, 18%. While the figures presented are weighted and unweighted by R&D, the results show an evenly distributed importance for the different channels for learning about public research outputs. The figures in this text refer to the unweighted results.

  4. The coexistence of various types of KTOs is exemplified by the case of the UK where there are two professional associations: AURIL (Association for University Research and Industry Links) and UNICO (The University Companies Association). The former includes organizations concerned with knowledge transfer in general, while the latter tends to be more representative of TTOs focused on exploitation of IPRs and creation of spin-offs.

  5. For examples of the relative weight of the various channels of knowledge transfer, see the results of the UK Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey and Muscio (2008) for Italy.

  6. We want to thank an anonymous referee for this specific information.

  7. Similar to Germany, in Hungary KT activities are assigned to the Bay Zoltan Institute.

  8. As the NUBS (2003) report shows, based on data from 125 UK HEI for the year 2002, 45% of HEIs made no new patent applications (the mean number of patent applications/HEI was 9) and 67% of HEI did not have a patent issued in 2002.

  9. See, e.g. among others, Thursby and Thursby (2002) and Bercovitz and Feldman (2004), who examine the patterns of invention disclosure from university researchers to TTOs, patent applications and licences from universities; Feldman et al. (2002) examine equity positions in companies as payment for the use of university IP; Di Gregorio and Shane (2003) examine the frequency of establishment of new firms to exploit university-assigned IP; Friedman and Silberman (2003) investigate the number of licences and level of licensing income generated by universities.

  10. See also Special Issue of Geuna and Mowery (2007).

  11. The authors conducted a study on the history of the Stanford University liaison office’s management of the patenting and licensing of the first major biotechnology process patent, the Cohen-Boyer patent for recombinant DNA (USPTO #4,2337,224; December 1980). The recombinant DNA technology resulted in the production of 2,442 known products and the foundation of hundreds of small biotech firms.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Cristiano Antonelli, Pablo D’Este, Ben Martin and Ed Steinmueller for comments and suggestions. Some of the ideas presented in this article result from Aldo Geuna’s role as Rapporteur in the CREST OMC-3% Expert Group (European Commission, DG Research) on the topic “Encourage the reform of public research centres and universities”, and his teaching and discussions over the last 10 years, with students on “The Political Economy of Science Policy” course at SPRU. The article has also benefited from the comments and specific suggestions from two anonymous referees. All mistakes and omissions, and the views expressed, remain the sole responsibility of the authors. Aldo Geuna acknowledges the support from the International Centre for Economic Research (ICER), Turin (I). Alessandro Muscio acknowledges the financial support of the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Progetto FIRB: “Un approccio multidimensionale al trasferimento tecnologico”).

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Geuna, A., Muscio, A. The Governance of University Knowledge Transfer: A Critical Review of the Literature. Minerva 47, 93–114 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9118-2

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