Production of University Technological Knowledge in European Regions: Evidence from Patent Data

Abstract

Acosta M., Coronado D., Leon M. D. and Martinez M. A. Production of university technological knowledge in European regions: evidence from patent data, Regional Studies. This paper explores the European regional distribution of the production of new technological knowledge generated by universities, as measured by patent counts. The empirical basis for this study is a unique panel data set of 4580 European university patents from 1998 to 2004. The main findings were a strong regional and sectoral concentration of patents, and no average relation between university technological specialization and industrial specialization. Furthermore, the results suggest that variations in regional research and development funding do affect patenting activities in regions, with elasticities showing constant returns to scale, but no evidence was found regarding the industrial potential of the region encouraging the production of new university technological knowledge. [image omitted] Acosta M., Coronado D., Leon M. D. et Martinez M. A. La production de la connaissance technologique universitaire dans les regions europeennes: des preuves provenant des donnees sur les brevets, Regional Studies. Cet article cherche a examiner la distribution regionale europeenne de la production de la nouvelle connaissance technologique universitaire en fonction du nombre de brevets. La base empirique de cette etude est un unique ensemble de donnees provenant d'une enquete par panel pour 4.580 brevets deposes par des universites europeennes entre 1998 et 2004. Il en a resulte principalement une forte concentration regionale et sectorielle des brevets et aucun rapport moyen entre la specialisation technologique universitaire et la specialisation industrielle. Qui plus est, les resultats laissent supposer que la variation du financement regional pour la R et D influent sur les activites regionales brevetables, dont les elasticites montrent des rendements d'echelle constants, mais il n'y avait pas de preuves quant a une correlation etroite entre le potentiel industriel de la region et la production de la nouvelle connaissance technologique universitaire. Regions europeennes Production de la connaissance Brevets universitaires Specialisation technologique Acosta M., Coronado D., Leon M. D. und Martinez M. A. Die Produktion von universitarem technischem Wissen in europaischen Regionen: Belege von Patentdaten, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag wird die regionale Verteilung der Produktion von neuem technischem Wissen, das von Universitaten in Europa erzeugt wird, anhand der Anzahl der Patente untersucht. Die empirische Grundlage fur diese Studie bildet ein eindeutiger Paneldatensatz mit 4580 Patenten europaischer Universitaten aus der Zeit von 1998 bis 2004. Unsere wichtigsten Ergebnisse waren eine ausgepragte regionale und sektorale Konzentration der Patente sowie keine durchschnittliche Beziehung zwischen der technischen Spezialisierung der Universitaten und der industriellen Spezialisierung. Daruber hinaus weisen unsere Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass sich...

The Determinants of University Patenting: Do Incentives Matter?

“…For the rest of the variables, the results show, as expected, a positive relation between the funding of R&D and the number of patents, as in other empirical analyses (Coupé, 2003;Payne and Siow, 2003;Azagra et al, 2006;Acosta et al, 2008). The results of the estimations show the convenience of splitting the funded R&D between the two sources of funding, income for basic research and contractual funding for applied research.…”

“…Therefore expenditures on R&D have been used in the majority of applied studies of the determinants of academic patents (Coupé, 2003;Payne and Siow, 2003;Azagra et al, 2006;Acosta et al, 2008). In particular, Coupé (2003) examines the relation between expenditure on R&D and academic patents in detail and confirms that it is a significant variable.…”

Production of output and ideas: efficiency and growth patterns in the United States

“…Furthermore, up to 70% of the US academic R&D is sponsored by US government agencies (National Science Board, 2012), rendering thus academic R&D an interesting policy related instrument. Most importantly, studies have shown that academic research has significant positive effects in regional industry R&D and economic growth (Jaffe, 1989;Acosta et al, 2009 Following the literature, we express the inputs in both production processes as follows:…”

Determinants of national patent ownership by public research organisations and universities

“…However, the Spanish case may be peculiar due to the small average size of the country's universities. For the EU-15, still at regional level, returns to R&D expenditure appear to be constant in the period 1998 to 2002 (Acosta et al 2008). To what extent these results apply at country level, for the EU-27, and over a longer time span is unknown; given the slightly more abundant microeconomic evidence, we expect low returns to R&D expenditure when using countries as the unit of observation.…”

“…In many of the microeconomic production functions estimated using universities as the unit of observation (Coupé 2003;Azagra et al 2003;2006a, b;Baldini et al 2006;Carayol 2007;Acosta et al 2008;Wong and Singh 2009;Baldini 2009), one of the theoretical determinants of university-owned patents is university R&D expenditures and/or other measures for university research size, such as R&D staff. The impact of R&D on patents tends to be positive and significant, with elasticities lower than 1.…”