Mind the Gap: Lessons from the UK to Brazil about the Roles of TTOs throughout Collaborative R&D Projects.
| Autor | Thomas, Elisa |
| Cargo | Report |
Introduction
The open innovation concept appears in the fifth position in the ranking of core topics in technology and innovation management studies (Chesbrough, 2003; Lee & Kang, 2017). Related to this context, literature on the National Innovation System (NIS) supports the understanding about how public policies and institutions influence the interaction among agents leading to innovation (Freeman, 1995; Lundvall, 1992). However, the lack of technical and commercial skills to attract partners creates barriers to the formation of networks for innovation (Kotabe & Swan, 1995; Pittaway, Robertson, Munir, Denyer, & Neely, 2004). As a consequence of the struggles regarding collaborative innovation, there has been an increasing emergence of agents who provide services for companies that seek collaboration (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, & West, 2006; Hossain, 2012). Called innovation intermediaries or brokers, they play an important set of functions within the innovation system as mediators or facilitators of cooperation (Gassmann, Daiber, & Enkel, 2011; Gianiodis, Ellis, & Secchi, 2010; Howells, 2006).
Universities' technology transfer offices (TTOs) are one type of intermediary promoting fundamental activities to partnerships between academia and the industry regarding innovation (Bessant & Rush, 1995; Siegel, Veugelers, & Wright, 2007). Recently, research on NIS is shifting from developed countries to still incipient studies located in emerging economies, also showing a recent emphasis on the role of intermediaries in the NIS (Watkins, Papaioannou, Mugwagwa, & Kale, 2015). The interaction between science and technology is a key characteristic of the NIS (Nelson & Rosenberg, 1993), and different NIS lead to different growth rates, being an important influence to the wealth of nations (Freeman, 2002). Therefore, the generation, transfer and commercialisation of knowledge via university-industry partnerships become pillars for the transformation of emerging economies into innovative economies (Guerrero, Urbano, & Herrera, 2017).
Brazil shows limited cases of successful interaction between scientific and technological spheres where universities played a key role (Dahlman & Frischtak, 1993; Mazzoleni & Nelson, 2007; Suzigan & Albuquerque, 2011). However, countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States developed their strong economies due to NIS where there is a notable prevalence of a scientific culture (Li & Kozhikode, 2009; Siegel et al., 2007). Countries with good results in the generation of science and technology were able to implement, throughout history, practices for the exploitation of knowledge because of the adequate construction of their innovation systems. It explains why developing countries tend to adopt science and technology policies from developed countries (Bell & Pavitt, 1997). In Brazil, there is a distance between production at universities and application by the private sector (Pontes, 2015) although there have been successful partnerships in some sectors (Suzigan & Albuquerque, 2011).
Although studies of TTOs have provided valuable insights on their importance for university-industry collaboration, Huyghe, Knockaert, Piva and Wright (2016) show that many researchers commercialise their inventions directly to the marketplace, bypassing TTOs. Yet, research on TTOs has primarily focused on describing the activity of technology commercialisation (Almeida, 2008; Etzkowitz, Mello, & Almeida, 2005; Rapini, Chiarini, & Bittencourt, 2015) rather than on the TTOs' help throughout an entire R&D project. If TTO's activities are analysed in isolation, such as the commercialisation stage, we may lack the understanding of TTOs' impact on the whole project. Also, it could generate misleading implications for the practitioners who may need help in different stages of a R&D project, not only in commercialising the results. Nevertheless, if the literature is well advanced regarding the benefits of relationships between universities and industry for innovation (Guerrero et al., 2017; Scandura, 2016) and punctual activities performed by intermediaries (Agogue, Ystrom, & Le Masson, 2017; Villani, Rasmussen, & Grimaldi, 2017), it is less advanced in outlining the role of TTOs as intermediaries throughout the entire collaborative innovation project. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of TTOs throughout collaborative R&D projects and suggest some lessons for Brazilian TTOs based on the experience of the UK. Empirically, it presents case studies from the UK and Brazil. Although the units of analysis are inter-organizational projects and not a macroeconomic perspective, the distinguished context of the NIS in countries with different levels of development is taken into account (Carayannis, Cherepovitsyn, & Ilinova, 2016; Munari, Rasmussen, Toschi, & Villani, 2016). By analysing the role of TTOs as innovation intermediaries in similar projects in the UK and Brazil, we seek to suggest key processes for TTOs that may help the NIS of emerging countries to learn from the experience of a developed country.
The paper is organized as follows: we briefly discuss the literature on NIS to focus on TTOs as intermediaries of collaborative innovation. After the Method, the paper presents two case studies. Finally, the results raise some propositions on the role of TTOs throughout the whole duration of collaborative R&D projects and we suggest some lessons for Brazilian TTOs based on the experience of the UK.
Literature Review
NIS and university-industry relationships
The NIS is the institutional arrangement that seeks to foster innovation in a country context (Freeman, 1995; Lundvall, 1992). From a macro perspective, the NIS aims at leveraging the socioeconomic development of countries, involving a network of public and private actors whose activities and interactions create and diffuse new technologies (Freeman, 1995).
Among the various organizations involved with the economic development of a country through innovation, universities have been playing an increasing role (Etzkowitz et al., 2005). Cooperation between universities and firms is reported at the NIS literature as key for knowledge creation and therefore for innovation (Rapini et al., 2015). The so-called entrepreneurial university incorporates economic development as a university mission complementing their traditional contributions of research and teaching (Trippl, Sinozic, & Smith, 2015).
Within this context, universities provide fertile knowledge-intensive environments to support the exploration and exploitation of innovation "especially in emerging economies, where governments have created subsidies to promote enterprise innovation through compulsory university partnerships as a strategy to stimulate regional economic development" (Guerrero et al., 2017, p. 3). However, Radosevic (2011) points out that there is a failure within the relationship between science and technology in the context of catching up and laggard economies due to the application of conventional policy "based on the logic of the linear innovation model while the reality of these countries is based on the logic of the interactive innovation model" (p. 374). He argues that "the interactive model focuses on the social process underlying economically oriented technical novelty and design (engineering)" (Radosevic, 2011, p. 374) instead of policy focused on R&D budget. Kim and Lee (2015) add that different impacts of scientific knowledge on economic growth depend "upon the effectiveness of the national innovation system, in particular the degree of effective commercialisation of scientific knowledge, which is lacking in latecomer economies" (p. 44).
TTOs as intermediaries of collaborative R&D projects: a review and context
Some institutions such as TTOs influence the formation of relationships by acting as intermediaries in the search for partners and therefore in the establishment of inter-organizational network for innovation (Battistella, De Toni, & Pillon, 2016; Gassmann et al., 2011). Using the review by Howells (2006), we define innovation intermediaries as proactive service organizations within innovation systems that have close and continuous interactions with its clients, which involve varied and crucial functions in supporting innovation. Intermediaries or brokers (Chesbrough et al., 2006; Hossain, 2012) can help the formation of relationships that require complementary knowledge, resource sharing and coordination amongst organizations involved in collaborative R&D projects. The intermediary is located between the seeker of knowledge and resources needed for innovation on one side, and the source of them on the other side (Gianiodis et al., 2010). Or as the distinction by Meulen and Rip (1998), an intermediary is in between the top level of government agencies and the research performance level. Billington and Davidson (2013) state that the use of intermediaries may extend the boundaries of partner search, because larger networks turn into higher returns on innovation investment. Siegel, Veugelers and Wright (2007) say that TTOs are intermediaries between suppliers of innovations (university scientists) and organizations that can potentially (help to) commercialise them. Such intermediaries may be university liaison departments, research councils, funding agencies or private companies. Different organizations can benefit from the services provided by an intermediary. According to Winch and Courtney (2007), universities use brokers to seek partners for their externally funded research programs while firms use brokers to shape research programs to meet the perceived needs of the industry.
Natalicchio, Petruzzelli and Garavelli (2014) stated that the use of intermediaries is consistent with the increasing tendency to decompose the whole innovation process into distinct phases. Agogue, Ystrom and Le Masson (2013) say that beyond...
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