Heterogeneity of patenting activity and its implications for scientific research

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated a controversy on the impact for scientific research. It has been argued that an increasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact on more fundamental research efforts in science. Several scholars have therefore analyzed the relationship between publication and patenting activity of university researchers, and most articles report positive correlations between patenting and publishing activities of scientists. However, previous studies do not account for heterogeneity of patenting activities. This paper explores the incidence of patenting and publishing of scientists distinguishing between corporate patents and patents assigned to non-profit organizations for a large sample of professors active in Germany. While patents assigned to non-profit organizations (incl. individual ownership of the professors themselves) complement publication quantity and quality, patents assigned to corporations are negatively related to quantity and quality of publication output.     

纳米科学与技术之间的联系:基于学术型发明人的分析

本文聚焦于从事纳米研究的学术型发明人,即大学中同时具有国际期刊论文作者和专利发明人双重身份的研究人员(author-inventor),他们是联结纳米科学与纳米技术的纽带.通过比较学术型发明人和非学术型发明人的论文数量、被引频次和H指数,本文发现学术型发明人的研究绩效显著高于纯学术研究者,并且在高产作者和高影响力作者行列中占有更高的比例.本文使用负二项回归模型分析了专利活动对于学术型发明人研究绩效的作用,发现专利数量对于论文数量呈正向作用,但对论文质量有副作用.最后,本文给出了相关政策建议.     

Implementing Bayh-Dole-like laws: Faculty problems and their impact on university patenting activity

The implementation of a Bayh-Dole-like legislation outside the US is still a major concern that needs to be addressed. I fill this gap in two ways. First, I report the results of a faculty survey on obstacles to patenting activity in Italian universities, targeted both to inventors and to those non-inventors which reported to engage in university patenting activity and to give up before any patents could be filed. Second, I investigate their effect in a regression model using universities’ patent counts as the dependent variable. Results show that obstacles to university patenting activity reduce to four dimensions: lack of support mechanisms (including insufficient reward for researchers, lack of a TTO, lack of funds to cover patenting costs), commercialisation problems, too heavy teaching and administrative duties, and personal/cultural problems (related to the scarce knowledge of institutional-level patent regulations and to the “open science” mentality of the university). Among them, however, only the lack of support by the university administration reduces the patent counts. Publication productivity has an inverted U-shaped relation with patent counts, but the overall effect is still largely positive, given the current publication levels.     

Are patenting scientists the better scholars?: An exploratory comparison of inventor-authors with their non-inventing peers in nano-science and technology

This paper explores the relationship between scientific publication and patenting activity. More specifically, it examines for the field of nano-science and nano-technology whether researchers who both publish and patent are more productive and more highly cited than their peers who concentrate on scholarly publication in communicating their research results. This study is based on an analysis of the nano-science publications and nano-technology patents of a small set of European countries. While only a very few nano-scientists appear to hold patents in nano-technology, many nano-inventors seem to be actively publishing nano-science research. Overall, the patenting scientists appear to outperform their solely publishing (non-inventing) peers in terms of publication counts and citation frequency. However, a closer examination of the highly active and highly cited nano-authors points to a slightly different situation. While still over-represented among the highly cited authors, inventor-authors appear not to be among the most highly cited authors in that category, with a single notable exception. One policy implication is that, generally speaking, patenting activity does not appear to have an adverse impact on the publication and citation performance of researchers.     

Are patenting scientists the better scholars?: An exploratory comparison of inventor-authors with their non-inventing peers in nano-science and technology

This paper explores the relationship between scientific publication and patenting activity. More specifically, it examines for the field of nano-science and nano-technology whether researchers who both publish and patent are more productive and more highly cited than their peers who concentrate on scholarly publication in communicating their research results. This study is based on an analysis of the nano-science publications and nano-technology patents of a small set of European countries. While only a very few nano-scientists appear to hold patents in nano-technology, many nano-inventors seem to be actively publishing nano-science research. Overall, the patenting scientists appear to outperform their solely publishing (non-inventing) peers in terms of publication counts and citation frequency. However, a closer examination of the highly active and highly cited nano-authors points to a slightly different situation. While still over-represented among the highly cited authors, inventor-authors appear not to be among the most highly cited authors in that category, with a single notable exception. One policy implication is that, generally speaking, patenting activity does not appear to have an adverse impact on the publication and citation performance of researchers.     

University patenting and its effects on academic research: The emerging European evidence

This paper surveys the existing fragmentary data on the growth of university-owned patents and university-invented patents in Europe. We find evidence that university patenting is growing, but this phenomenon remains heterogeneous across countries and disciplines. We found some evidence that university licensing is not profitable for most universities, although some do succeed in attracting substantial additional revenues. This might be due to the fact that patents and publications tend to go hand in hand. In a dynamic setting however, we fear that the increase in university patenting exacerbates differences across universities in terms of financial resources and research outcome.     

我国“杜拜法规”对高校专利与许可的影响研究

运用实证与案例研究方法,评估我国类似美国杜拜法案的法规对高校专利及许可的影响。结果表明:该法规促进了高校专利的增长,但仅是影响因素之一;对高校专利许可的促进作用不如对专利的作用明显;对不同层次高校的专利和许可影响不同。     

Does policy influence the commercialization route? Evidence from National Institutes of Health funded scientists

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical test of the commercialization route chosen by university scientists funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the NIH and how their chosen commercialization path is influenced by whether or not the university technology transfer office is involved. In particular, the paper identifies two routes for scientific commercialization. Scientists who select the TTO route by commercializing their research through assigning all patents to their university TTO account for 70% of NCI patenting scientists. Scientists who choose the backdoor route to commercialize their research, in that they do not assign patents to their university TTO, comprise 30% of patenting NCI scientists. The findings show a clear link between the commercialization mode and the commercialization route. Scientists choosing the backdoor route for commercialization, by not assigning patents to their university to commercialize research, tend to rely on the commercialization mode of starting a new firm. By contrast, scientists who select the TTO route by assigning their patents to the university tend to rely on the commercialization mode of licensing.     

The role of social embeddedness in professorial entrepreneurship: a comparison of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley and Stanford

Professorial entrepreneurship has recently attracted much attention. This paper draws upon historical research, a survey of faculty, and an Internet-based methodology for identifying professorial affiliations with entrepreneurial firms at two of the premier electrical engineering and computer science departments in the US, The University of California, Berkeley and Stanford. We employ the concept of “nested embeddedness” to explain why the faculty members in these two institutions have different levels of entrepreneurship and corporate involvement. EE&CS faculty at both universities were found to be socially embedded in departments and disciplines that supported and placed value on entrepreneurial activities. However, while being embedded in a university environment with a history of success and high level of support for entrepreneurship, EE&CS faculty at Stanford had a significantly greater level of corporate involvement, including the founding of start-ups. Although significantly less than Stanford, the level of corporate involvement among EE&CS faculty at Berkeley was also substantial. This suggests that being embedded in an academic department and disciplines with cultures that are supportive of entrepreneurial activity can help counteract the disincentives created by a university environment that is not strongly supportive of these activities.     

Institutional changes and the commercialization of academic knowledge: A study of Italian universities’ patenting activities between 1965 and 2002

This paper focuses on Italian universities’ patenting activities between 1965 and 2002 and on the way they were affected by internal IPR regulations, set as part of broader responses to the increased level of autonomy granted to universities during the 1990s. Our analyses are based on a unique dataset including detailed information on all patents filed by Italian universities and university-level characteristics. Results show that: (1) in the last 10 years, the number of Italian university patents rose substantially; (2) patenting activities almost tripled in universities with an internal IPR regulation, after controlling for several universities’ characteristics, previous patenting activity and time trends; (3) each time a university creates its own patent regulation, there is a 9% increase in the likelihood that universities without any internal patent regulation will adopt one. Implications for university technology transfer policies are discussed.     

Changes to university IPR regulations in Europe and the impact on academic patenting

This article develops a general framework to describe the changes in university IPR regulations in Europe and their effects on the patenting activities of universities and on knowledge transfer processes. Understanding the effects of changes in IPR regulations on academic patenting is a complex issue, and parallels with the US case can be misleading. First, despite the general trend towards institutional ownership, university IPR regulations in Europe remain extremely differentiated and there is no one-to-one mapping to the US system. Second, it is difficult to disentangle the quantitative and qualitative effects of changes in IPR ownership regulations on academic patenting activities from the effects of concurrent transformations in the institutional, cultural and organizational landscape surrounding academic knowledge transfer. The article proposes a review and typological classification of national university IPR ownership systems on the basis of their development since 2000, and uses it to analyze the aggregate dynamics of academic patent ownership in several European countries. The analysis of patterns of ownership of academic patents shows that there has been a general increase in university patenting since 1990, with a significant slowdown (and even reduction in some countries) after early 2000s accompanied by a switch in academic patents ownership in favor of university ownership though preserving the European specificity of high company ownership of academic invented patents.     

校外兼职对我国高校教师科研产出的影响

    本文基于2014年中国大学教师微观调查数据,采用OLS回归模型实证检验了教师校外兼职参与以及兼职类型对科研产出的影响,并探究了教师科研偏好的调节作用。实证结果表明：（1）我国高校教师的校外兼职参与和科研产出存在互补效应。具体而言,校外兼职与教师国内论文发表数量呈显著的正相关关系,与其他形式的科研产出不显著相关。（2）与没有参与校外兼职的教师相比,教师在公共部门从事校外兼职主要对国内论文的发表和专著出版有正向促进作用,而在私有部门兼职有利于高校教师获取更多的发明专利。（3）教师科研偏好对校外兼职与科研产出之间的关系具有调节作用。研究结果为我们更好地引导和规范我国高校教师参与校外兼职,规避潜在角色冲突提供了实证证据与新的启示。     

University-industry linkages in the UK: What are the factors underlying the variety of interactions with industry?

This paper examines the different channels through which academic researchers interact with industry and the factors that influence the researchers’ engagement in a variety of interactions. This study is based on a large scale survey of UK academic researchers. The results show that university researchers interact with industry using a wide variety of channels, and engage more frequently in the majority of the channels examined - such as consultancy & contract research, joint research, or training - as compared to patenting or spin-out activities. In explaining the variety and frequency of interactions, we find that individual characteristics of researchers have a stronger impact than the characteristics of their departments or universities. Finally, we argue that by paying greater attention to the broad range of knowledge transfer mechanisms (in addition to patenting and spin-outs), policy initiatives could contribute to building the researchers’ skills necessary to integrate the worlds of scientific research and application.     

Who commercialises research at Swedish universities and why?

European universities have been increasingly pressured since the late 1990s to make a more visible contribution to economic development. This policy interest has produced an increasing focus on knowledge transfer generally, and more specifically on measures to promote a research culture which values patenting and firm formation. This paper presents results from an interview study of academic faculty views on knowledge transfer and commercialisation at five public universities in Sweden. Our results show that, despite the retention of inventor ownership at Swedish universities, there is a high degree of knowledge transfer of all kinds. The overriding driver of entrepreneurial behaviour among faculty appears to be the low level of direct funding for research in universities. We find that attitudes to firm formation vary from positive to ambivalent, and that faculty from the humanities and social sciences engage in a higher level of entrepreneurial and policy adaptive behaviour than they report. We conclude that faculty at Swedish universities perceive the role of public servant and entrepreneurial academic as conflicting. This perceived conflict may be one reason for reluctance to report instances of commercialisation of research.     

Creating and Sustaining a University Affiliated Research Center: The Center for MIS Studies at the University of Oklahoma

Creating and sustaining a university-affiliated research center can provide significant value to both university faculty and industry participants. This paper reports on the Center for MIS Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Formal and informal interactions between faculty and industry participants are described focusing on management of research exchange between the two groups.     

高校技术转移对科研产出的影响效应研究——科研资助的中介作用与调节作用

技术转移作为高校社会服务职能的重要体现形式，对高校科研活动究竟产生了何种影响是学术界关注的热点问题。本文以2008-2014年中国106所“211”及省部共建高校为样本，研究了高校技术转移对其论文产出和专利产出的影响效应，并对不同来源的科研资助（政府资助和企业资助）在高校技术转移与科研产出关系中的中介作用和调节作用分别进行了实证检验。结果表明：（1）高校技术转移对论文产出的影响不显著，而对专利产出具有显著正向影响；（2）高校技术转移对其获取政府资助和企业资助均具有显著的正向影响，政府资助和企业资助在高校技术转移与专利产出关系中发挥积极的中介作用；（3）政府资助对高校技术转移与论文产出的关系具有显著的负向调节作用，而企业资助对高校技术转移与专利产出的关系具有显著的负向调节作用。     

Faculty participation in licensing: Implications for research

We exploit a unique database on research and invention disclosure of faculty at 11 major US universities over a period of 17 years to explore the extent to which faculty involvement in license activity has affected their research profiles. We relate faculty disclosures to their industry and government-sponsored research, publications, and citations. Recent disclosure by faculty has a positive effect on industry and government funding, but, if they disclose multiple times, the effect on government funding can be negative. Recent and repeated disclosures increase the faculty member's publication count as well as the importance of these publications in terms of citations. We also examine life-cycle effects and find that the ability to attract funding and the rate of publication increase as the faculty member ages but at a decreasing rate. We also find that post-tenure, both types of funding decrease.     

Academic scientists’ affiliation with university research centers: Selection dynamics

University research centers have been institutionalized as a part of the science policy repertoire committed to strategic use of science and technology. Based on a representative sample of academic scientists and engineers in American research universities, this study investigates the selection dynamics, attempting to unfold the determinants of department-affiliated faculty members to be center affiliates. The findings suggest that university research centers select their affiliates on the basis of individual scientific and technical human capital. Scientists from prestigious departments are more likely to be center affiliates, so are prolific scientists, former postdoctoral scholars and the elder cohorts. In the meantime, university research centers are able to overcome the incentive incongruity with academic departments, as is evidenced by a higher likelihood among junior scientists to secure center connections. Dedicated to diversity and equity, university research centers provide a level playing field for women, minority and foreign-born scientists. The study concludes with a discussion of the scientific and technical human capital theory and policy implications in the science enterprise.     

Patenting and US academic research in the 20th century: The world before and after Bayh-Dole

The dramatic growth of patenting and licensing of publicly funded research by American research universities in the closing quarter of the 20th century has stimulated some of the highest-profile debates in science and technology policy today. The issue of what aspects of academic research should be public - and what private - lies at the heart of each of these debates. The movement of academic scientists into commercialisation of discoveries and inventions has been extolled by some as a new model of academic research, one which facilitates economic and social returns from universities. At the same time, this trend has been criticised by others as representing a socially inefficient ‘privatisation’ of academic research and as a threat to the ethos of science itself. This paper places these debates in historical context, with a review of changes in American universities’ patenting policies, procedures and practices throughout the 20th century, an assessment of the logic underlying the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, and an overview of its effects on economic returns from university research.     

Evidence on how academics manage their portfolio of knowledge transfer activities

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether six broad categories of knowledge transfer activities undertaken by academics: the creation and diffusion of knowledge through publications, transmission of knowledge through teaching, informal knowledge transfer, patenting, spin-off formation and consulting activities, are complementary, substitute, or independent, as well as the conditions under which complementarities, substitution and independence among these activities are likely to emerge. This investigation relied on data regarding 1554 researchers funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Contrary to prior studies which have examined complementarities and the determinants of knowledge transfer activities in separate models, this study relied on a multivariate path model to reflect the fact that in practice, academics consider simultaneously whether or not to undertake multiple knowledge transfer activities. Overall, the results point to the existence of three very different types of knowledge transfer portfolios of activities: a first portfolio made up of complementary activities which are interdependent and reinforce each other. This portfolio includes publications, patenting, spin-off creation, consulting and informal knowledge transfer. A second portfolio includes teaching activities and publication outputs which are substitute for each other. A third portfolio comprises teaching activities and other activities independent from teaching, namely, patenting, spin-off creation, consulting and informal knowledge transfer. Each of these three portfolios of knowledge transfer activities emerged under different conditions. Implications are derived for managerial practice and future research.