The influence of institutional settings on university-industry R&D collaboration

The institutional settings of universities influence many aspects of their activities including their R&D collaboration with the industry. This paper makes a comparison among national universities, public universities and private universities regarding university-industry R&D collaboration in Japan. The paper finds that national universities conduct substantial R&D, attract company R&D fund most, engage in joint R&D rather than contract R&D, and are active in patenting. However, they are not active in receiving contract R&D and joint R&D with SMEs. Private universities engage in contract R&D where all expenditure is taken care of by the contractors and show good performance in licensing patents. Public universities are active to collaborate with SMEs but are not active in patent management.