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P-004STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF EXTERNAL SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OVER INDUSTRYTHROUGHOUT R&D AND INNOVATIONCarlos Vivas Augier, Universidad Autónoma De Madrid, SpainINTRODUCTION AND STATE OF THE ART REVIEWNowadays the importance and relevance given to innovation and knowledge as drivers of wealth is clearly evidenced. In aknowledge-based economy, knowledge is one key input for production (Foray 2006) therefore the generation, diffusion andapplication of knowledge is crucial for today’s modern societies. In the process of production and consumption of knowledgeseveral actors take part and play different roles. On one side is science aiming to increase the knowledge stock available andits use for production (Mokyr 2002: 31-35). Then there is the industry which employs knowledge for commercial and manufacturingpurposes (Mokyr 2002: 39-41). According to Arnold (2004) these linkages between science and society contribute to increasethe knowledge-intensity by developing a virtuous circle. The highest is the number of linkages between science and industry;the highest is the knowledge-intensity of production and consumption in a knowledge-based economy.Knowledge allows not only the generation of new knowledge but other several outputs like new ideas, new technologies or newinventions for example. These novelties have the capacity of generating economic benefits for both society and industry oncethey reach the market. When they do, they are better known as innovations (Fagerberg 2006). For the industry, innovation is agreat asset because it is the path to competitiveness (Abramo et al 2009: 498). Although when the knowledge stock of industryis incomplete, the private sector solves the missing skills and lack of expertise by engaging into cooperation activities with otheragents (Arnold 2004: 11). Therefore, when specific skills and knowledge are missing is when external sources of knowledgeemerge as key partners. Hence, research organizations have a noteworthy role for ensuring the success of the innovationprocess (Arnold 2004: 4) and by cooperating with the industry, they contribute to increase the impact of R&D on economicgrowth (Van Beer et al 2008: 294-296). The difficulty however exists in valuing the efficiency of the agents to facilitate innovationand growth. Even if innovation is considered so important, there is no single universally accepted measure of innovation (Freel& Harrison 2006: 294). The challenge is within the complexity and difficulty to measure the impact of R&D and innovation(Aschhoff & Schmidt 2008; Bozeman 2000; Bozeman & Coker 1992; Izushi 2003; Shapira et al 1996).Geisler (2001) points out the disparity on the perception of an outcome and the difficulty of how to measure benefits as twobarriers for properly assessing the impact of R&D and Innovation. Izushi (2003) and Shapira et al (1996) agree on the biasesintroduced by the time lag existing between the moment when the impact-inflicting activity took place and the perception of theinflicted impact. According to some studies, the time lag between funding of basic research and commercialization of it resultscan vary from 17 to 19 years (McMillan & Hamilton 2003: 187). Last, but by no means least, is the bias introduced by attribution(Shapira et al 1996: 191). As the term implies, it deals with fact that an impact could be a consequence of several variables andits magnitude or intensity depends upon them.RESEARCH FOCUSAll of the above does not only imply that assessment is difficult. It also reflects how little is known about the impact of researchon industry (Beise & Stahl 1999: 395) and a need for a stronger and improved “control theory” for the national systems ofinnovation (Arnold 2004: 7) that allows to value the effectiveness of its R&D and innovation activities. Government R&D managersare urged to maximized as much as possible the contributions of scientific and technical knowledge (Bozeman & Rogers2001: 417) but without an assessment method to determine if the objectives are properly and effectively achieved, it is difficultto justify resource allocation. Therefore, this study focuses on enlarging and strengthening the body of knowledge on impactassessment of R&D and innovation from the relationship between research organizations and the industry. To achieve suchgoal, this research aims for analyzing the impact-assessment literature to study how the scientific community has addressedseveral issues within this topic. To do so the following research inquiries are stated:Which are the most studied impacts of R&D and innovation from the relationship between industry and research organizations?Is there any difference in how the scientific community analyzes the impact from different types of external sources of knowledge?If so, what are those differences?According to impact-scholars, which are the determinants of the impact in the relationship between research organizations andindustry?What are the implications of how the impact of R&D and innovation has been studied so far for policy-making?METHODOLOGYFor properly answering a research inquiry, it is necessary to find the proper research method. The method selected was thetechnique commonly known as systematic review of the literature. The reason to choose this research tool is because it allows“the researcher both to map and to assess the existing intellectual territory, and to specify a research question to develop theexisting body of knowledge further” (Tranfield et al 2003: 208). Despite the fact that systematic review is a recent researchmethod, it has reach great consensus among the scientific community over the steps to be taken during the process (Tranfieldet al 2003: 214). Tranfield et al (2003) describes the process consisting on three main steps: 1) Planning the review, 2)Conducting the review, and 3) Reporting and dissemination.Madrid, October 20, 21 & 22 - 2010357