Report: “Universities are failing to promote economic growth'' economist Recent article headlines about journal articles examining the influence of public science on corporate R&D. But that's “perhaps too dramatic,” according to the paper's authors, and the key message from the paper is that when large companies lose their ability to absorb university research, “university research alone is not enough.” “It's not very useful,” he said. In the case of innovation, unless it is “embodied in a person or an invention.”
Ashish Arora, the Rex D. Adams Professor of Business Administration at Duke University, was the lead author of the study, which was published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
This study analyzes a wealth of U.S. data from the Digital Science Dimensions database on scientific publications by companies, universities, public research institutions, and federal funding for this research.About the scientists introduced in american scientist and man A directory containing links to companies. About PhDs from the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database. Company financial information from S&P's Compusat North America.
The paper concludes that “abstract knowledge advances” in the form of journal articles.itself It has little or no response in terms of promoting innovation in large companies,” and that university inventions “reduce the demand for internal research by companies.”
“Our findings challenge the idea that public science is a unique public good that influences corporate research and development through knowledge spillovers,” said Sharon Berenzon and Larissa of Duke University. The paper, co-authored by Sioaka, Hansen Chan and Tel Aviv University's Leah Shea, added: .
However, when asked about it, economist Prof. Arora said of the headline of the article about the paper: times higher education It was “perhaps overly dramatic.”
“It is clear that there has been a fairly large and continuous increase in university research without any accompanying productivity growth…What form of causality exists is an important question, but clearly not resolved.'' No,” he said.
Professor Arora said: [corporate] Investment in research and development (mainly research and development) has been steadily increasing in the United States; [it] It accounts for approximately 70 percent of America's research and development. One could therefore easily argue that private R&D has not been able to increase productivity growth. ”
The paper also concludes that “university-trained human capital fosters corporate innovation.”
“Universities produce a lot of things,” says Professor Arora. ” economist The headline was about invalid results, abstract research that universities produce in the form of papers.it seems useless [companies’ innovation] On average it's a lot. However, the other two types that the university produces are clearly effective. Especially the knowledge embodied in people in the form of a PhD is useful.
“Further downstream knowledge, in the form of patents produced by universities, also influences corporate R&D.”
The paper concludes that its findings indicate that “firms, especially those that are not on the technological frontier, appear to lack the absorptive capacity to take advantage of ideas provided from outside, unless this is embodied in human capital or invention. It confirms that.”
The limit to growth is the speed with which companies can turn ideas into innovations, he added. “In other words, productivity growth may be slowing because potential users, private companies, lack the absorptive capacity to understand and exploit these ideas.”
“We need companies that can absorb this research,” Professor Arora said. “Sometimes it's startups. But you also need established incumbents, the big companies that do the bulk of the research and development, to have that capability. If that's missing, you're left with just university research.” Then it’s not very useful – until it’s embodied in a person or an invention.”
Professor Arora also highlighted the findings that there are “significant differences between disciplines”. For example, if we look at the life sciences…we can see that university research, even in the abstract, does have a positive impact. ”
john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com
