National innovation and knowledge performance: the role of higher education teaching and training

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of the higher education system (HES) in the production of national innovation. We focus on the issue of institutional diversity of HESs and its impact on national innovation systems. We identify four key HES characteristics and hypothesize their influence on the production of national innovation. The empirical evidence presented in this paper suggests several conclusions which have relevance for policy makers. In particular, there should be focus upon increasing access to and investment in higher education and lowering subsidies. The latter is found to have an adverse effect on patent production.

Keywords:

• innovation
• knowledge creation
• educational policy
• funding
• first mission

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge a two-year research grant (QR) allocated by the Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, to Mohammed Saad. The authors would also like to thank Surya Mahdi for able research assistance and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Notes

1 A patent family is a number of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention.

2 For a brief review of how to deal with missing observations see Drukker (2011).

3 These are: Curacao, Gibraltar, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Somalia, South Sudan, Taiwan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, and The Vatican.

4 We approximate the contribution of one of more variables by carrying out two regressions, one of which excludes the variable(s) of interest. The difference in the R-squares gives the required partial contribution.

5 For comparison, OLS estimation of the two models gave relatively low R-squares (82–83% in the extended sample against 98–96% in the smaller set).