shown that academics are essentially motivated by learning opportunities, fundraising and satisfaction derived from puzzle solving in research activities, our paper provides evidence of the positive role of an additional motivation for both the breadth and depth of KT: the extent to which the academic scientist advances the societal role of universities ("mission" motivation). We find that both "funding" and "mission" motivations have a positive effect on the variety and intensity of KT activities, with little effect for learning opportunities. Our results show also a higher effect of "funding" and "mission" on the depth of KT activities compared to their breadth.
In a context of scarce resources, exacerbated by the economic crisis, financing investment and structural changes in slowly growing economies, such as Italy, is very challenging. It becomes fundamental to engage in evaluation exercises in order to understand what policies are working and for whom. The paper offers an evaluation exercise on the major instruments used to promote R&D and innovation activities of Italian firms. We concentrate in particular on the incentives provided by Law 46/82 (and revisions) and we look at the effects they have on firms expenditures on R&D and on new employment generation. Unlike previous studies, we consider the effects of such incentives also when other similar policies are at work. We also look at the effects for different subgroups of firms. Results suggest that a rethinking of the system of incentives would be appropriate to limit an inefficient overlapping of instruments. They also highlight that the additionality of R&D investment is verified for some categories of firms. Starting from these results, further and continuous research is needed on this subject, in order to build a robust set of evidence to inform the policy making process.
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