NIST GCR 02-829
Universities as Research Partners

1. Introduction

This view by the Council on Competitiveness (1996, pp. 3–4) is not surprising. There are indications that industry-university research relationships have strengthened over the past few decades. For example, university participation in formal research joint ventures has increased steadily since the mid-1980s (Link, 1996), the number of industry-university R&D centers has increased by more than 60 percent during the 1980s (Cohen et al., 1997), and a recent survey of U.S. science faculty revealed that many desire even more partnership relationships with industry (Morgan, 1998). Mowery and Teece (1996, p. 111) contend that such growth in strategic alliances in R&D is indicative of a “broad restructuring of the U.S. national R&D system.”

It is, however, surprising that little is known about the types of roles that universities play in research partnerships or about the economic consequences associated with those roles. Our investigation is a first effort to provide some empirical information about these issues.

What research there is on the topic of universities as research partners falls broadly into either examinations of industry motivations or of university motivations for engaging in an industry-university research relationship. The existing research has not investigated the economic effects associated with university participation as thoroughly, especially at the project level.

The literature has identified two broad industry motivations for engaging in an industry-university research relationship. The first is access to complementary research activity and research results.⁽¹⁾ Cohen et al. (1997) provide a selective review of this literature, emphasizing the studies that have documented that university research enhances firms’ sales, R&D productivity, and patenting activity. ⁽²⁾ As Rosenberg and Nelson (1994, p. 340) note: “What university research most often does today is to stimulate and enhance the power of R&D done in industry, as contrasted with providing a substitute for it.” Pavitt (1998) is more specific and concludes that academic research augments the capacity of businesses to solve complex problems. The second industry motivation is access to key university personnel.⁽³⁾

University motivations for partnering with industry seem to be financially based. Administration-based financial pressures are growing for faculty to engage in applied commercial research with industry.⁽⁴⁾ Zeckhauser (1996, p. 12746), for example, is subtle when he refers to the supposed importance of industry-supported research to universities as he describes how such relationships might develop: “Information gifts [to industry] may be a part of [a university’s] commercial courtship ritual.” Along those same lines, Cohen et al. (1997, p. 177) contend that: ⁽⁵⁾ “University administrators appear to be interested chiefly in the revenue generated by relationships with industry.” They are also of the opinion that faculty, who are fundamental to making such relationships work: ⁽⁶⁾ “… desire support, per se, because it contributes to their personal incomes [and] eminence … primarily through foundation research that provides the building blocks for other research and therefore tends to be widely cited.”

On the other hand, several drawbacks to university involvement with industry have been identified, such as the diversion of faculty time and effort from teaching, the conflict between industrial trace secrecy and traditional academic openness, and the distorting effect of industry funding on the university budget allocation process (in particular, the tension induced when the distribution of resources is vastly unequal across departments and schools).

The remainder of this paper is outlined as follows. In the second section we describe the sample of research partnerships studied. This sample comes from the population of research projects funded by the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) between 1991 and 1997. Our quantitative inquiry into the role of universities in research partnerships, based on survey data, is presented in the third section. We ask about the roles and effects of universities in research partnerships, and we provide descriptive information to answer each based on an analysis of university involvement in ATP-funded projects. Finally, in the last section we offer concluding observations in an effort to set the stage for future research in this area.

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1. See Blumenthal et al. (1986), Jaffe (1989), Adams (1990), Berman (1990), Feller (1990), Mansfield (1991, 1992), Van de Ven (1993), Bonaccorsi and Piccaluga (1994), Klevorick et al. (1994), Zucker, Darby, and Armstrong (1994), Henderson, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg (1995), Mansfield and Lee (1996), Zeckhauser (1996), Campbell (1997), Cohen et al. (1997), and Baldwin and Link (1998).

2. Cockburn and Henderson (1997) show that it was important for innovative pharmaceutical firms to maintain ties to universities. Perhaps research ties with universities increase the “absorptive capacity,” in the Cohen and Leventhal (1990) sense, of the innovative firms.

3. See Leyden and Link (1992) and Burnham (1997). Link (1995) documents that one reason for the growth of Research Triangle Park (North Carolina) was the desire of industrial research firms to locate near the triangle universities (University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and Duke University in Durham).

4. See Berman (1990), Feller (1990), Henderson et al. (1995), and Siegel, Waldman, and Link (1999).

5. Siegel et al. (1999) document that university administrators consider licensing and royalty revenues from industry as an important output from university technology transfer offices.

6. As an aside, while this argument is prevalent, the fact is that federal support to universities has increased over the past decade in real terms, from $10.6 billion dollars in 1990 to $14.1 billion dollars in 1999 (National Science Foundation/SRS, 1997).

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Date created: October 18, 2002
Last updated: August 2, 2005

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