The challenges of connecting science–industry in peripheral regions: researchers’ attitudes and organizational and institutional features as determinants

ABSTRACT

Researchers’ attitudes towards knowledge transfer are considered to be one important barrier to interaction with the business sector despite institutional and organizational determinants. This study focuses on the empirical analysis of a catch-up region and provides relevant results to enable understanding of the dynamics of emergence of knowledge transfer in less industrialized contexts. The purpose of the analysis lies in the combined study of the influence of determinants from three different levels in the development of interaction with firms at the organizational, institutional and individual levels, which refers to researchers’ attitudes towards interaction. The empirical analysis is based on a face-to-face survey designed for this purpose addressed to a representative sample of 765 research team leaders in a peripheral region. The results suggest that team leaders’ attitudes are not a significant barrier to interaction with firms compared to other variables related to institutional and organizational levels and highlight implications for policy-makers.

KEYWORDS:

• University–industry interactions
• knowledge-transfer mechanisms
• peripheral region
• culture barriers
• scientific community

Acknowledgments

The data used in this paper have been obtained in the framework of the project entitled: “Conditions of the generation and use of research activities in Andalusia”, The authors acknowledge the principal investigator of the project (Manuel Perez-Yruela) and the researchers belonging to this project at the Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA). Previous versions of the paper were presented at the XXII World Conference of Political Science. The authors thank Richard Woolley for helpful comments and useful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Given that in peripheral regions the research base is concentrated in universities and other public organizations, for clarity purposes we use the term science and industry interactions to denote the relationships between the wide range of publicly owned organizations in the regional innovation system that have the formal mission of carrying out scientific research, including universities, public research organisations, research and technology centres and research units at hospitals.

2. The service sector represents 62% of the GDP in Andalusia, followed by the construction sector (10.8%), manufacturing (9%), agriculture, the animal industry and fisheries (6.1%) and energy (2.4%) (INE, Regional accounts, 2007)

3. Of the 23 public research centres linked to the CSIC, 9 are linked to universities or the Regional Government of Andalusia.

4. In the event that members of the research team belong to different institutions, the research team is registered in the Official Register of Research Teams, referencing the main institution to which the leader of the team is linked.

Additional information

Funding

The data used in this paper have been obtained in the framework of the project entitled: Conditions of the generation and use of research activities in Andalusia; Excellence Research Project funded by the Regional Government of Andalusia (Spain). Reference: 2005-0824.