Benefits of Industry-University Centers Examined

Research collaboration between companies and academia has grown tremendously over the past two decades and is recognized as one of the key elements of building tech-based economies (see the National Governors' Association, Using Research and Development to Grow State Economies, 2000 or the Milken Institute, Blueprint for a High-Tech Cluster, 2000). Many states' science and technology programs have dedicated significant financial resources to encouraging the growth of these research partnerships. The National Science Foundation funds several programs to foster industry-university cooperative research, including among others, the Science and Technology Centers and the Engineering Research Centers. 

Surprisingly, little has been written on the impact of these initiatives from the perspective of the industrial client, customer, or constituent. Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs), written by James Adams, Eric Chiang, and Katara Starkey, presents one of the first independent econometric analyses of the effects of university-industry centers on industrial R&D laboratories. All three authors are with the Department of Economics at the University of Florida. 

The authors define IUCRCs broadly to include any small academic center dependent on industrial financial support and designed to foster technology transfer between universities and firms. 

The working paper reports: 

• Industrial research and development labs with membership in any industry-university cooperative research center were likely to generate 4 percent more patents than companies that were not involved in collaborative research programs. Those firms participating in the NSF-funded Science and Technology
  
  Centers or Engineering Research Centers increased patent activities by 5 percent on average. 
• IUCRCs attract the country's larger industrial R&D labs -- averaging 257 scientists and engineers on staff versus 93 scientists and engineers in non-member firms sampled and annual R&D budgets of $22.7 million versus $8.4 million for non-members. 
• Companies cited the following benefits from joining IUCRCs (in descending order of statistical significance): university faculty consulting, joint authorship with university scientists, access to engineering graduates, contract research, and access to science graduates. 
• Those benefits that were not statistically significant were: personnel movements from universty to lab, flows of university research ideas to industry, and licensing of university patents.  

The results may warrant further exploration given the potential policy implications for local and state efforts to build tech-based economies. For instance, public policy makers may wish to consider efforts to attract or engage smaller firms in university-industry R&D, given the current propensity of IUCRCs to attract larger

industrial R&D labs. Policy makers also may wish to examine if IUCRCs are the best vehicle by which to encourage the transfer of technology from universities. 

The abstract of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers, can be found at http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7843  The full paper can be purchased from NBER for $5.