Is the commercialization of European academic R&D weak? - A critical assessment of a dominant belief and associated policy responses
Journal article, 2013
There is a widespread belief that EU underperforms in the commercialization of publicly funded research and that the appropriate policy response is to transfer the ownership of intellectual property rights to Universities. This paper assesses the validity of these twin beliefs. In addressing the first, we limit ourselves to Sweden which still retains its "Teacher's Exemption" model. In spite of confident statements made in the literature and by Government, we provide evidence to the contrary, i.e. that Swedish academia performs well in terms of commercialization. We also have doubts about the usefulness of the medicine prescribed to cure the alleged problem. Largely drawing on US literature, we argue that the medicine risks harming strong university-industry networks, biasing technical change, reducing entrepreneurial activity and generating costs to Universities which may be detrimental to technology transfer. In conclusion, we seriously question the validity of both beliefs.
university inventions
Dominant belief
exploitation
paradox
entrepreneurship
property
illustration
Sweden
Academic research
innovation
Commercialization
technology-transfer
Technology transfer
science
growth
Author
Staffan Jacobsson
Chalmers, Energy and Environment, Environmental Systems Analysis
A. Lindholm-Dahlstrand
Lunds Universitet
L. Elg
VINNOVA
Research Policy
0048-7333 (ISSN)
Vol. 42 4 874-885Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Economics and Business
DOI
10.1016/j.respol.2013.01.005