Assessing economic impact of research and innovation originating from public research institutions and universities—case of Singapore PRIs

Abstract

Research and innovation activities from universities and public research institutes (PRIs) contribute to economic growth in significant ways. Given the hefty investment in R&D in both public and private sectors, it is essential for policy makers to have meaningful, relevant and practical metrics for measuring the impact of public-funded research and innovation. However, the definition of impact and its measurements seem to differ across the literature, making it difficult for scholars and policy makers to inform policy and direct future research. This paper aims to consolidate all parts of the proverbial elephants by reviewing the extant literature for university/PRI impact studies, analysing and synthesising the erstwhile disparate studies, discussing the current metrics and their issues and identifying gaps among the different research strands. Building on the endogenous growth theory and the Triple Helix, we contribute to the body of knowledge by offering a multi-level Impact Assessment Framework for assessing the economic impact of public research. In the context of the framework, we applied the transaction cost economics theory and net present value concept to propose a new indicator, realised imputed commercial value (RICV). We empirically establish that RICV is a better predictor than the traditional licensing revenue metric used by universities/PRIs of firms' propensity to repeat licensing agreement with them, thereby indicating academic innovation impact.

Performance management of public–private collaboration in innovation

“…The dependent variable, collaboration outcome is operationalized as the logarithmic value of revenues collected by the PRI from the licensee firm for licensing PRI technology that has been incubated by the collaborative innovation project (Carlsson & Fridh, ). This variable is also known as licensing income for PRIs, which comprises the royalty payments from licensees incorporating the licensed technology into their products or services (Cheah, ) and has been widely used as a performance indicator of technology commercialization collaboration between PRIs and firms (AUTM, ; Cheah & Yu, ). If the PRI–firm research collaboration is successful, the PRIs’ technology will be licensed to the firms to be incorporated into the firm's products and/or service offerings.…”

Assessing economic impact and efficiency of higher education institutions

“…As a direct response to the criticism that these analyses are too static in nature, some researchers have attempted to calculate economic impact not by translating HEI inputs into economic outputs, but instead by quantifying those outputs or conducting a qualitative assessment of the economic impacts of their activities. A relatively large corpus of research has examined linkages between the individual HEI and industry through, for example, evaluating the number and quality of spin-off firms produced through research and knowledge exchange activities (see, Cheah & Yu, 2016;Eesley & Miller, 2017;Goddard & Vallance, 2013;Rogers et al, 1999;Siegfried et al, 2007). Other research has measured the impact of technology transfer activities such as licensing agreements (e.g., Charles, 2011;Glasson, 2003;Hermannsson, Lisenkova, McGregor, & Swales, 2013;Langford, 2002;Mayer, 2007;Zhang, Larkin & Lucey, 2017).…”

Analysis of the Determinants of Innovation in Developing Countries: A Vector Auto-regression Approach

“…The argument can be expanded to include other important factors and activities that aid the innovation process. The role of research institutions has been seen as a critical tool to developing innovation activities (Minh & Hjortsø, 2015;Cheah & Yu, 2016). Government support for universities encourages them to get more actively involved in innovation activities (Huang & Chen, 2017;Intarakumnerd & Goto, 2018).…”