La contribución de las universidades a la innovaciónefectos del fomento de la interación universidad-empresa y las patentes universitarias

Abstract

These are the objectives of this thesis: ? To summarise the state-of-the-art regarding the debates on the role of university in innovation and the recent increase of university-industry interaction and university patents. ? To perform an appreciative analysis on some of the changes taking place at universities in their attempt to get involved in their environment. ? To perform some empirical analyses on university-industry interaction in the Valencian Community and on university patents on two specific universities Polytechnic University of Valencia and Louis Pasteur University. ? To raise whether public support to the three analysed phenomena should continue or change, specially if the aim is to foster technological innovation. Chapter 1 contains an introduction on innovation studies. Chapter 2 explains the role of universities in innovation. It shows a bibliographic review and some appreciative theory that guides the rest of the work. Chapters 3 and 4 deepen into the bibliographic review on university-industry interaction and university patents, respectively. They raise key questions for an empirical contribution. First, whether these phenomena have an impact on the quality of academic research. Second, whether they foster knowledge transmission and innovation. To answer these questions, Chapter 3 relies on a survey on university-industry interaction in the Valencian Community. It will also enable us to study whether all the objectives of university-industry interaction are compatible. Chapter 4 relies on two case studies on university patents, the Polytechnic University of Valencia and, in order to offer a different view from the Spanish case, the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg. The chapter also includes a theoretical model on the academic incentives to patent. Besides partial conclusions at every chapter, Chapter 5 offers their summary, as well as a synthesis in order to fulfil the objectives of the thesis.