We are delighted to invite you to join the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research Seminar Series 23/24 with Rune Dahl Fitjar, Professor of Innovation Studies, University of Stavanger.
How do University-Industry Collaborations Benefit Innovation? Direct and Indirect Outcomes of Different Collaboration Types
This paper explores the extent to which firms perceive to benefit from university-industry collaborations (UICs) in their innovation processes, building on survey data from 232 Norwegian firms. We find that firms experience not only direct innovation benefits from collaborations, but also indirect benefits in the form of closer proximity to universities, which can in turn improve future collaboration. We compare the reported outputs from various types of collaboration, finding that firms engaging mainly in research-oriented interactions more often report that collaborations result in innovation than those engaging in education-oriented or more informal collaborations. However, education-oriented and informal collaborations are equally important for building cognitive, organizational, institutional and social proximities between firms and universities.
Rune Dahl Fitjar is a professor in innovation studies and comes from the position of Vice-Rector for Innovation and Society at the University of Stavanger. He is the current Head of the Center for Innovation (CIR) which was established in 2008. It is jointly managed by the University of Stavanger (UiS) and the Norwegian Research Center (NORCE). His research focuses on various aspects of regions, particularly those related to regional innovation.