This study examined how collaboration with research and technology organisations (RTOs) was associated with industry-university collaboration as part of firms' innovative activities in different types of geographical regions. By combining data from the Danish Research and Innovation Survey and Danish register data at different points in time, the link between firms' collaboration with RTOs and their collaboration with universities in Denmark was studied.Also, the link between the firms' locations in peripheral regions, non-metropolitan university regions or the metropolitan region of Copenhagen and their collaboration with universities in Denmark were also studied. The results suggest that firms that collaborate with RTOs are more likely to collaborate with universities. This paper argues that collaboration with RTOs is associated with a higher likelihood of industry-university collaboration because this experience of collaboration allows firms to overcome barriers for collaboration with universities, which are related to differences in norms and incentive systems between firms and universities. When looking at different types of regions, firms in peripheral and metropolitan regions that collaborated with RTOs were more likely to collaborate with universities. However, firms in non-metropolitan university regions that collaborated with RTOs were not more likely to collaborate with universities.
This paper focuses on two cases of interaction between Aalborg University and science-based industries that have appeared in the North Denmark region in recent decades: the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and biomedical industries. These two cases provide a unique opportunity to study the mechanisms behind the more or less successful development of localised capabilities through university-industry interaction: while both of them are sciencebased industries with tight linkages with the university, the outcome of the exchanges with the higher education institution has differed. The feedback loops between university and industry seem to have stimulated the development of localised capabilities favouring the competitiveness, and success, of the ICT industry. However, the university actions supporting the development of the biomedical industry do not seem to have been followed by a growing industrial development, as would be expected if the biomedical industry had developed localised capabilities ensuring its competitiveness. For each case, qualitative and quantitative research methods have been applied: this paper combines desk research on secondary sources with qualitative interviews and descriptive analyses based on data from Statistics Denmark.
The industry-university collaboration literature has studied the factors that are positively related to industry-university collaboration; however, not much is known about the relevance of these factors in different types of regions. Similarly, not much is known about the factors that are related to the initiation of collaboration with universities; and its unfolding. In order to help fill these gaps in the literature, the present study discusses the results of a multiple case study aimed at uncovering factors associated with the initiation and unfolding of industry-university collaboration among 7 SMEs operating in non-metropolitan regions of Denmark, Norway and Portugal. In order to highlight factors specific to the non-metropolitan SMEs, the case study also includes 4 cases of SMEs in metropolitan regions of the same countries. Among the non-metropolitan cases, the local universities play an active role in starting relations with the focal SMEs. These relations later on evolve, incentivised by the goal of satisfying international customers and supported by public funds, from non-collaborative relations such as student internships into collaborative research. Having an R&D department helps the non-metropolitan SMEs integrate university knowledge, and these firms developed their R&D departments while building on their collaboration with the focal university. The findings from the case studies contribute to the industryuniversity collaboration literature, by pointing out at factors associated with the initiation, and unfolding of industry-university collaboration among firms in nonmetropolitan regions.
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