Public-private innovation: Mediating roles and ICT niches of industrial research institutes

Abstract Innovation processes involve diverse sets of organizations including universities, private firms, corporate research labs and public research institutes. Collaborative forms of knowledge production and innovative activity enable actors to reduce risk, specialize, and take advantage of knowledge internal and external to the own organization. This paper discusses interactions and collaborations between public and private sector innovation. This is done through an analysis of semi-public research institutes in Sweden and their roles as arenas for R&D processes involving industry, university and government in terms of funding, research and public—private innovation. Particular attention is paid to technological niches of research institutes and utilization of research findings from collaborative R&D. The results show that institutes occupy specific niches which influence their ways of transferring knowledge. It is argued that diversity among R&D performers as well as funding opportunities is paramount for innovation systems to thrive.

[1]  Benoît Godin,et al.  Research and development: how the ‘D’ got into R&D , 2006 .

[2]  Stanley K.M. Hew.  A Step Beyond , 1982 .

[3]  Dominique Foray,et al.  Academic Licensing: a European Study , 2007 .

[4]  D. Price.  Is Technology Historically Independent of Science? A Study in Statistical Historiography , 1965 .

[5]  Jason Owen-Smith,et al.  From separate systems to a hybrid order: accumulative advantage across public and private science at Research One universities , 2003 .

[6]  Meric S. Gertler,et al.  The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography , 2003 .

[7]  Meric S. Gertler,et al.  Tacit knowledge and the economic geography of context, or The undefinable tacitness of being (there) , 2003 .

[8]  Walter W. Powell,et al.  The Frontiers of Intellectual Property: Expanded Protection versus New Models of Open Science , 2007 .

[9]  M. Perkmann,et al.  The Two Faces of Collaboration: Impacts of University-Industry Relations on Public Research , 2009 .

[10]  Maureen McKelvey,et al.  How and why dynamic selection regimes affect the firm’s innovative search activities , 2004 .

[11]  Walter W. Powell,et al.  From Vulnerable to Venerated: The Institutionalization of Academic Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences , 2007 .

[12]  D. Edgerton.  ‘The linear model’ did not exist: Reflections on the history and historiography of science and research in industry in the twentieth century , 2004 .

[13]  Sverker Sörlin.  En ny institutssektor : En analys av industriforskningsinstitutens villkor och framtid ur ett närings- och innovationspolitiskt perspektiv , 2006 .

[14]  Magnus Klofsten,et al.  Comparing Academic Entrepreneurship in Europe – The Case of Sweden and Ireland , 2000 .

[15]  Raine Hermans,et al.  Value Creation in the Interface of Industry and Academy - A Case Study of Intellectual Capital of Technology Transfer Offices At US Universities , 2008 .

[16]  Xielin Liu,et al.  Comparing innovation systems: a framework and application to China’s transitional context , 2001 .

[17]  T. Bresnahan,et al.  ‘Old Economy’ Inputs for ‘New Economy’ Outcomes: Cluster Formation in the New Silicon Valleys , 2001 .

[18]  David Edgerton.  The Science-Industry Nexus: History, Policy, Implications. , 2004 .

[19]  Walter W. Powell,et al.  A Comparison of U.S. and European University-Industry Relations in the Life Sciences , 2001 .

[20]  Franco Malerba,et al.  How do new technologies emerge? A patent-based analysis of ICT-related new industrial activities , 2003 .

[21]  J. Potts.  The innovation deficit in public services: The curious problem of too much efficiency and not enough waste and failure , 2009 .

[22]  Katarina Larsen,et al.  Science and technology parks and the integration of environmental policy , 2004 .

[23]  Scott Shane,et al.  Academic Entrepreneurship: University Spinoffs and Wealth Creation , 2004 .

[24]  Jacqueline Senker,et al.  Implications of industrial relationships for universities: a case study of the UK Teaching Company Scheme , 1997 .

[25]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D , 1989 .

[26]  P. Chang,et al.  The innovation systems of Taiwan and China: a comparative analysis , 2004 .

[27]  Franco Malerba,et al.  Schumpeterian Patterns of Innovation , 1995 .

[28]  Deutschland,et al.  Bundesbericht Forschung und Innovation , 2008 .

[29]  B. Godin.  The Linear Model of Innovation , 2006 .

[30]  S. Breschi,et al.  Networks of inventors and the role of academia: an exploration of Italian patent data , 2004 .

[31]  Maja Fjæstad.  Research Institutes in Germany: Basic and Applied Science institutionalized? , 2010 .

[32]  Boel Berner.  Den gemensamma utvecklingen. Staten, storföretagen och samarbetet kring den svenska elkrafttekniken , 2001 .

[33]  Jane Calvert,et al.  What’s Special about Basic Research? , 2006 .

[34]  Brigitte Preissl,et al.  Research and technology organizations in the service economy , 2006 .

[35]  Sverker Sörlin.  A Step Beyond : International Evaluation of the GTS Institute System in Denmark , 2009 .

[36]  G. Dosi,et al.  The relationships between science, technologies and their industrial exploitation: An illustration through the myths and realities of the so-called ‘European Paradox’ , 2006 .

[37]  Staffan Jacobsson,et al.  Innovation systems: analytical and methodological issues , 2002 .

[38]  Jacqueline Senker,et al.  Making sense of diversity: public-private sector research linkage in three technologies , 1994 .

[39]  Annamaria Conti,et al.  Is the US outperforming Europe in university technology licensing? A new perspective on the European Paradox , 2011 .