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Higher Education and its Communities: Interconnections and Interdependencies offs. These initiatives especially facilitate activities like contract research, consulting services by faculty, and agreements with firms whereby annual fees are charged to each industrial member in exchange for access to state-of-the-art knowledge. And, finally, universities and industries have also joined in new organisations like university-industry shared research centres. Through strategic alliances and research consortia, university and industry aim at collaborative R&D and the joint commercialisation of R&D-products. The exact type of research-based interaction between universities and the non-university environment heavily depends on the discipline in question. Medicine, life sciences and engineering have a different type of interaction compared to arts and humanities and social sciences. It is also important to note that the issue is not just a demand side pull phenomenon, but also a matter of science push. Business (including the service sector) is becoming more academic and academics are becoming more business-like. Students (i.e. graduates) and staff are still regarded as the prime and most effective technology transfer mechanism. The number, quality and level of the graduates working in a particular firm or branch of industry heavily determines the intensity and effectiveness of the knowledge flows between university and research-oriented fi rms (see Cohen et al., 2002). In addition, the spatial configuration of the partners from university and industry is essential – whether they are located on the same spot, have opportunities to interact, et cetera. However, not all policy efforts and institutional reforms to encourage greater interaction between higher education institutions and their stakeholder communities are necessarily warranted, even in the face of intuitive appeal. The Bayh-Dole Act (1980) provides an excellent example as it gave academics whose research was being funded by federal dollars newfound flexibility to reap the financial rewards of their work. Politicians have long trumpeted Bayh-Dole’s success as an example of well-developed policy and the rhetoric has led some to suggest that similar legislation would be useful or even necessary to strengthen links between higher education institutions and industry in European countries (Mowery & Sampat, 2005). In reality though, the Act is too often given too much credit. Commercializing university research has been done since the beginning of the 20 th Century and was well underway prior to 1980. What is more, most US government departments and agencies already had their own regulations on faculty patenting of federally-funded research by the early-1970s. Bayh-Dole did not open the floodgates for American university scientists to suddenly patent their own research findings nor did it suddenly encourage faculty members to pursue stronger industry-university interactions. All it really did was consolidate the wide array of existing arrangements into one single piece of legislation. As some researchers suggest, faculty patenting and university-industry research partnerships in general would have likely experienced the same growth that has taken place since the early-1980s, without the Act (Mowery, et al., 2001). A more likely explanation for the growth was the parallel development of computing power (and use) and the surprising success of life sciences research in creating marketable pharmaceutical products for an ageing population. (1) Turning to the demand side of the equation – to the demands of business and industry for the outputs of academic research – it needs to be noted that this demand will have to be properly articulated for any interaction or knowledge transfer to take place at all. In particular when it comes to the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), one may point at a lack of awareness on the side of SME about what universities have to offer. However, when looking at those businesses that do work with universities, a survey of some 400 industry-university partnerships conducted by Lee (1996) can shed some light on the industry participants’ reasons for collaborating with universities. The study shows that the top reasons were: 1) access to new research, 2) development of new products, 3) maintaining a relationship with the university, 4) obtaining new patents, and 5) solving technical problems. In stark contrast, the top two priorities for university participants in industry-university partnerships were: 1) obtaining funds for research assistance, laboratory equipment and their personal research agendas, and 2) being able to field test theory and empirical research. This conclusion was already mentioned in section 6, where we quoted the Lee (2000) study. It is not surprising then that even though many in Europe are calling for further private investment in academic R&D, conflicting motives work against such efforts. If we accept industry’s longstanding reluctance to exploit university research in favour of other sources (Cohen, et al., 2002) and the polarized expectations of both partners, then developing such linkages will require considerable effort not only from industry but also from the higher education institutions and, more specifically, their faculty members. 1. A recent report on technology transfer of federally funded R&D by PCAST (2003) questions the impact Bayh-Dole has had on technology transfer and also suggests that life sciences research has been the more likely catalyst for the remarkable growth in patenting and commercialization. As evidence the report references the intellectual property problems universities have had in semiconductor research. 48 | HELF Theme Report
6. Indicators for Community Engagement There is a rich literature on the topic of indicators for community engagement and proposed sets of indicators that might be useful in evaluating the benefi ts, costs and otherwise of university-community interactions (e.g. Adams et al.; 2005; Ball & Wilkinson, 1994; Charles & Benneworth, 2002; Molas-Gallart et al., 2002). Indeed, community engagement as measured through research performance has become increasingly important in several European countries (Jongbloed, et al. 2005). The Russell Group of Universities in the United Kingdom commissioned a report by the University of Sussex to provide advice on “…an analytical framework and a comprehensive set of indicators that may assist in the tracking and management of university Third Stream activities” (Molas-Gallart et al., 2002). Third Stream activities are defined as knowledge exchange and productive interactions with business, public sector organisations and the wider community, for the benefit of the economy and society. The research report came up with more than 30 indicators representing measures of knowledge transfer to the wider community. The indicators were placed in a framework diagram (see figure 2). In the UK, the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) supports higher education institutions in knowledge exchange and productive interactions with business, public sector organisations and the wider community, for the benefit of the economy and society. It represents a so-called third stream of funding component which may be seen as a reward and encouragement for knowledge transfer alongside research and teaching. The majority (about 75 %) of the HEIF funding is allocated by formula to universities on the condition that they submit plans for its use. A smaller amount (approximately 25 %) is available through a competition, for particularly innovative projects. The formula funding part is partly driven by data collected in a survey known as the Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey (see http:// www.hefce.ac.uk/reachout/hebci/). The data relate to external income from different sources: contract research, consultancy and equipment services; regeneration and development income; Figure 2: The Russell Report: A conceptual framework for analysing Third Stream activities Source: Molas-Gallart et al., 2002 HELF Theme Report | 49
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