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Comparative View of the EU Regions by Their Potential of University-Industry Cooperation

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Abstract

This article evaluates and compares the potential of different European Union regions to support university-industry cooperation as an important precondition for the implementation of the smart specialisation strategy. By using exploratory factor analysis, we found three independent dimensions describing the potential of regions to support university-industry cooperation. Research revealed a strong East-West divide between EU regions in all three dimensions. The findings indicate that many regions in Central Eastern European countries but also some regions in Southern Europe do not seem to have enough supportive strength to be able to benefit from the smart specialisation policy of EU. In order to benefit from the smart specialisation strategy, more attention should be given to the region-specific approach. In the universities from the lagging regions, knowledge translation capabilities must be developed. Core region universities need to be more motivated to cooperate with universities from the lagging regions. Regional level governance motivation and their capabilities toward the support of university and industry interactions should be developed and supported. The creation of linkages between core and weaker regions should be encouraged over the capacity building inside the weaker regions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Alo Lilles, Kärt Rõigas & Urmas Varblane

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  1. Alo Lilles
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  2. Kärt Rõigas
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  3. Urmas Varblane
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Correspondence to Alo Lilles.

Annex

Annex

Regional Innovation Scoreboard indicators

  • Population having completed tertiary education—The number of persons in age class (25–64) with some form of post-secondary education;

  • R&D expenditure in the public sector—All R&D expenditures in the government sector and the higher education sector as a percentage of Regional Gross Domestic Product;

  • R&D expenditure in the business sector—All R&D expenditures in the business sector as a percentage of Regional Gross Domestic Product;

  • SMEs innovating in-house—The sum of SMEs with in-house innovation activities. Innovative firms with in-house innovation activities have introduced a new product or new process either in-house or in combination with other firms. The indicator does not include new products or processes developed by other firms;

  • Innovative SMEs collaborating with others—The sum of SMEs with innovation cooperation activities. Firms with cooperation activities are those that had any cooperation agreements on innovation activities with other enterprises or institutions;

  • Product or process innovators—The number of SMEs which introduced a new product or a new process to one of their markets;

  • Sales of new-to-market and new-to-firm innovations—the sum of total turnover of new or significantly improved products for SMEs only;

  • Employment in medium-high/high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services—The number of employed persons in the medium-high and high-tech manufacturing sectors include chemicals (NACE24), machinery (NACE29), office equipment (NACE30), electrical equipment (NACE31), telecommunications and related equipment (NACE32), precision instruments (NACE33), automobiles (NACE34) and aerospace and other transport (NACE35). Number of employed persons in the knowledge-intensive services sectors include water transport (NACE 61), air transport (NACE 62), post and telecommunications (NACE64), financial intermediation (NACE 65), insurance and pension funding (NACE 66), activities auxiliary to financial intermediation (NACE 67), real estate activities (NACE 70), renting of machinery and equipment (NACE 71), computer and related activities (NACE72), research and development (NACE73) and other business activities (NACE 74);

  • EPO patents – The number of patents applied for at the European Patent Office (EPO), by year of filing. The national distribution of the patent applications is assigned according to the address of the inventor;

  • Marketing or organisational innovators—The number of SMEs which introduced a new marketing innovation and/or organisational innovation to one of their markets;

Non-R&D innovation expenditure—The sum of total innovation expenditure for SMEs only, excluding intramural and extramural R&D expenditures.

Table 4 Summary of the data
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Table 5 Correlations between university-industry cooperation supporting indicators for 2010 (first table) and 2007 (second table)
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Lilles, A., Rõigas, K. & Varblane, U. Comparative View of the EU Regions by Their Potential of University-Industry Cooperation. J Knowl Econ 11, 174–192 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-018-0533-1

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