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Scientific research groups’ cooperation with firms and government agencies: motivations and barriers

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Abstract

The behavior of academic researchers who engage in cooperation with industrial partners has already been the subject of considerable research. A lack of understanding exists regarding the motivations of scientific research groups to engage in cooperation with other types of external non-academic organizations and the perceived barriers that may inhibit this activity. In this paper we analyse the motivations and perceptions of risks that shape scientific research groups’ cooperation with industry and government partners. We find that motivations to cooperate are partly dependent on the type of partner organization involved, with advancing research goals mainly acting as an inducement to cooperate with government agencies, while searching for opportunities to apply knowledge motivates partnerships with firms. We also find that the majority of research groups cooperate with both firms and government, with their major motivation being to apply their knowledge. Among research groups that only cooperate with firms, interaction effects between motivations influence the likelihood of cooperation. Research groups do not consider risk to scientific autonomy a barrier to cooperating with firms, while risk to scientific credibility inhibits cooperation independently of the type of external partner. However, being motivated to advance research can reduce the effect of perceived barriers, independent of the type of partner organisation.

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Notes

  1. In our study we consider a research group that which works as a stable team, usually consisting of one leader and several researchers at different stages in their professional careers. Team members share goals, resources and research activities.

  2. The error for each region was: Andalusia, ±6.1 %; Madrid, ±5.2 %; Canary Island, ±6.8 %; and Basque Country, ±6.3 %.

  3. Although researchers working at CSIC or universities are part of PSROs, Teirlinck and Spithoven (2012) suggest distinguishing between public research institutes and universities due to their particularities in terms of research orientation (development and applied research versus basic research), research facilities (related to scale and complexity) and the management of research.

  4. Post-hoc results are not presented in Table 4 for space reasons.

  5. For space reasons results only include information for the model with main effects and the final model including three-way interaction term. Proposed models guarantee the importance of the full model because the adjusted-R2 increases in each model: baseline model, adj-R2 = 13 %; main effects model, adj-R2 = 17.3 %; two-way interaction model, adj-R2 = 18.3 %; full model, adj-R2 = 19.7 %.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this project (Ref. CSO2009-07805) was provided by the Spanish National Programme of Scientific Research, Development and Innovation. A preliminary version of the manuscript was presented at the EU-SPRI 2014 Manchester Conference, University of Manchester (June 2014). Thanks are due to session Chair Niki Vermeulen and conference delegates for the valuable comments and suggestions provided. Comments from Pablo D’Este and Elisabetta Marinelli, on an early draft of this paper, and Julia Olmos-Peñuela, on a later version, are also gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Forschungsinstitut für Arbeit, Technik und Kultur e.V. (F.A.T.K.), Universität Tübingen, Haußerstraße 43, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Irene Ramos-Vielba

  2. INGENIO (CSIC-UPV) Universitat Politècnica de València, Ciudad Politécnica de la Innovación, Edif 8E 4º, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Irene Ramos-Vielba, Mabel Sánchez-Barrioluengo & Richard Woolley

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  1. Irene Ramos-Vielba
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Correspondence to Mabel Sánchez-Barrioluengo.

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Table 7 Correlation matrix
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Ramos-Vielba, I., Sánchez-Barrioluengo, M. & Woolley, R. Scientific research groups’ cooperation with firms and government agencies: motivations and barriers. J Technol Transf 41, 558–585 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-015-9429-4

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