(contattate le autrici se interessati all'articolo)
The opening of satellite campuses in the vic... more (contattate le autrici se interessati all'articolo)
The opening of satellite campuses in the vicinity of a parent university is a peculiar feature of the Italian higher education system. While this phenomenon has often been viewed as a negative development, with critics suggesting that satellite campuses needlessly duplicate existing courses and do not generate any economic benefits, the few empirical analyses carried out so far in Italy provide a more nuanced interpretation. By bringing together different strands of literature on the role of universities in the regional economy, the article suggests many possible ways in which satellite campuses may contribute to their local economies - for instance, by stimulating demand for goods and services, research activities, innovation and human capital formation. These potential contributions are then assessed through a case study: the satellite campuses of the university of Turin located in the Cuneo province, in the north-west of Italy. Findings from this case study enable us to gain better understanding of the role placed by satellite campuses in stimulating local development.
Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D collaboration policy, carr... more Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D collaboration policy, carried out in Tuscany (Italy), we investigate different types of persistent network additionality, namely persistence effect, breadth effect, composition effect, and depth effect. Our findings reveal that this R&D collaboration policy has been able to generate some persistent changes in the networking behaviour of participating firms, particularly fostering their collaboration with universities. Network additionality has been greater for firms that were previously accustomed to collaborating with other firms, than for less collaborative firms. With respect to the former firms, we also find a composition effect, which implies a change in their type of partners in innovation-related activities. We find, instead, no evidence of network breadth and network depth effects.
In parallel with the interest in networks of innovation on the part of the academic literature, p... more In parallel with the interest in networks of innovation on the part of the academic literature, policymakers are increasingly recognizing the important systemic nature of innovation processes, involving many agents often engaged in networks of
This chapter discusses how to appropriately measure the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from ... more This chapter discusses how to appropriately measure the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from university to industry. It shows that the assessment systems implemented in several countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia and Europe) adopt rather narrow views of what constitute relevant knowledge transfer activities and their impacts, leading to the selection of partial indicators that might not allow all institutions to represent their knowledge transfer performance accurately. We derive some implications for the measurement of universities’ performance and for the assessment of policies in support of knowledge production and transfer more generally.
We investigate the determinants of industry researchers’ interactions with universities in differ... more We investigate the determinants of industry researchers’ interactions with universities in different localities, distinguishing between local and international universities. We analyze the extent to which local and international interactions are enabled by different types of individual personal networks (education, career based), and by their access to different business networks through their employer companies (local vs. domestic or international multinational company networks). We control for selection bias and numerous other individual and firm-level factors identified in the literature as important determinants of interaction with universities. Our findings suggest that industry researchers’ personal networks play a greater role in promoting interactions with local universities (i.e. in the same region, and other regions in the same country) while researcher employment in a multinational is especially important for establishing interaction with universities abroad.
This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities'... more This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities' knowledge transfer activities. We argue that different knowledge transfer activities, based on different models of how knowledge flows from university to industry, require different indicators for monitoring. We then compare, in light of these different models, four monitoring exercises currently implemented in the UK, US and Canada, Australia and Europe. We derive some specific implications for the measurement of universities' performance as well as some more general implications for the assessment of policies in support of knowledge production and transfer.
Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university inst... more Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university institutions engage in knowledge transfer activities, and study the institutional and environmental factors that influence their efficiency. While most current studies limit their focus to intellectual property disclosures, we focus on a broad range of knowledge transfer outputs that include also research and consultancy contracts, professional training courses, and public engagements.
This study was conducted in the framework of the research project 'Poli.in_Analisi e modellizzazi... more This study was conducted in the framework of the research project 'Poli.in_Analisi e modellizzazione dei poli di innovazione in Toscana', co-funded by Tuscany region and the Department of Economics 'Marco Biagi', university of Modena and reggio Emilia. The authors wish to thank Albino Caporale, Emanuele Fabbri, Angelita Luciani, Serena Brogi, and the managers of the Innovation poles for their support in data collection. Opinions and conclusions expressed are attributable only to the authors.
International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship
We investigate whether – and how – small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to capitali... more We investigate whether – and how – small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to capitalise on their engagement with academics in order to explore new opportunities beyond the achievement of the immediate objectives of their collaboration. Using empirical evidence drawn from academic–SME collaborations supported by the Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme in the United Kingdom, we find that for many SMEs, engagement with academics has led to new business opportunities, including new market creation, new project engagement, new venture creation and new strategic network development. The exploration of new business opportunities is facilitated when three overarching factors are present: (1) a capable boundary spanner, who creates bridges within the SME and between the SME and the university, and gains an in-depth knowledge of the collaboration’s content; (2) a committed SME leadership willing to allocate resources and permissions to the collaboration, and encouraging an op...
Researchers have argued that management academics' engagement with nonacademic stakeholders invol... more Researchers have argued that management academics' engagement with nonacademic stakeholders involves knowledge co-production rather than simple knowledge transfer from the former to the latter. This study suggests that the conceptual lens of knowledge co-production not only more fittingly describes academic engagement but also enables a clearer understanding of how academic engagement produces impact beyond academia. Building upon qualitative evidence on collaborations between management academics and businesses in the United Kingdom, the study supports the characterisation of academic engagement as knowledge co-production and argues that its impact (i) strongly depends on sustained knowledge co-producing interactions, (ii) 'ripples out' serendipitously, indirectly benefiting many stakeholders in ways that often cannot be anticipated, and (iii) unfolds and persists over a long period. These findings have implications for impact assessment and the development of the impact research agenda.
We contribute to the debate on the assessment of the behavioural effects of policies by investiga... more We contribute to the debate on the assessment of the behavioural effects of policies by investigating which features of policy interventions in support of innovation networks, if any, improve the firms' ability to form subsequent relationships. In order to do so, we analyse the evolution of dyadic relationships within a set of policy interventions implemented by the Italian region of Tuscany between 2002 and 2008, aimed at supporting innovation projects performed by networks of heterogeneous agents. Our analysis shows that the observed policies have changed the relational pattern of the firms, pushing them to collaborate-often in a stable way-with a number of agents. We find that a large sectoral heterogeneity among agents is generally associated with a lower probability of networking; and that the presence of specialized intermediaries increases the firms' ability to network with universities.
In competitive knowledge-based economies, policymakers recognise the importance of universities' ... more In competitive knowledge-based economies, policymakers recognise the importance of universities' engagement in third mission activities. This paper investigates how a specific policy approach to encourage third mission engagement-the use of performance-based funding to reward universities' success in this domain-aligns with the broader goals of third mission policy. Considering the case of the United Kingdom (UK), the first country to have implemented a system of this kind, we analyse how the system has come into being and how it has evolved, and we discuss whether its implementation is likely to encourage universities to behave in ways that are aligned with the goals of third mission policy, as outlined in government documents. We argue that the system encourages universities to focus on a narrow range of income-producing third mission activities, and this is not well aligned with the policy goal to support a complex innovation ecosystem comprising universities with different third mission objectives and strategies. The paper concludes by proposing possible avenues for achieving greater alignment between incentives and policy goals.
An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovato... more An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovators is: what kind of innovation networks should be supported, if the policy objective is not just to sponsor successful innovation projects, but also to encourage the participants to form networks with desirable characteristics? Focusing on a set of policy programmes implemented by the regional government of Tuscany, in Italy, between 2002 and 2008, aimed at funding networks of collaborating organisations, we investigate whether the imposition of requirements on the composition of the networks that would be eligible for funding-in particular, the demand that networks should comply with minimum size and heterogeneity thresholds-influenced the participants' networking behaviour in the context of successive policy interventions. Our results show that these requirements immediately affected the size and composition of the project networks that applied for funding, although not always in the intended direction. However, these effects did not extend to the successive periods, when those requirements were no longer in force. This suggests that the imposition of policy requirements, per se, is unlikely to induce persistent changes in organizations' networking behaviour. Other approaches such as implementing outreach actions in order to encourage new organisations to participate in existing innovation networks and to form new ones, and additional measures designed to foster learning opportunities for the participants, might be more effective tools to influence the networking behaviour of participating organisations.
Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Piedmont Chamber of Commerce for help with data collection... more Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Piedmont Chamber of Commerce for help with data collection, and particularly to Barbara Barazza for her support and comments. The UIPIE database used for this analysis was created with the support of the project IAMAT coordinated by Fondazione Rosselli. Financial support from the European Commission (FP6) Project, NEST-2006-PATH-Cul, CID, Contract n.: FP6-043345 is gratefully acknowledged. For very helpful comments that have greatly improved the paper, we are grateful to the participants in the EAEPE conference "The economic crisis and the renewal of the European model(s): Revisiting the debate on varieties of capitalism", Bordeaux, October 28-30, 2010, and to three anonymous reviewers. Running title: Collaboration objectives and the location of the university partner
The reflections that have driven the research work proposed in this volume take the moves from th... more The reflections that have driven the research work proposed in this volume take the moves from theoretical questions that are intertwined in an intense confrontation with regional administrators, managers of service centers, researchers working on issues of technology transfer and innovation. The analytical work has allowed us to identify the conditions for fostering generative relationships and scaffolding structure (support structures) effective in supporting innovation processes in systems of small and medium enterprises. A coherent set of policies for innovation must address issues arising at different time scales and at different levels of political and social organization (municipalities, regions, individual countries to the European Union) and must be able to identify, for each level, the agents on which a lever to stimulate and support innovation. What tools do we have to identify these agents, and to monitor and evaluate the processes of innovation and not only innovations and their effects? In the essays in this volume innovation is seen as a social process characterized by interactions among heterogeneous agents. Interactions involving many aspects (cognitive, social, technological, economic and political) that develop over weeks, or sometimes for decades, and which take place in many locations (from universities to industrial research centers both public and private, from regulatory agencies to trade associations, professional orders, to the organization of the markets). Each interaction process, in each of these locations, it can create "bottlenecks" that prevent the creation or the emergence of innovations. If we consider the interaction a key element of the innovation process, then we need to explore in more depth what are the relevant ones and in what contexts (think of the system of education and training, the university system, the public research system and that of private research, financial institutions, under the conditions laid down by law governing exchanges between the actors and intellectual property). We must also ask what types of organizations, and under what activities are involved in the process innovative. Where interactions between agents are not generating desired results in terms of innovation, such tools can change the structure of the interactions? With reference to the systems of small and medium enterprises, the contributions collected in the volume identify some answers to these questions and deepen the analysis of their implications for innovation policy. Two axes of reasoning will guide the reading: the theories of innovation, in the first part of the volume, reflections on policies to support innovation, in the second part.
In the knowledge-based economy, innovation is a key driver of firm creation, employment generatio... more In the knowledge-based economy, innovation is a key driver of firm creation, employment generation and, more broadly, economic growth. New business ventures and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in supporting innovation and its ...
(contattate le autrici se interessati all'articolo)
The opening of satellite campuses in the vic... more (contattate le autrici se interessati all'articolo)
The opening of satellite campuses in the vicinity of a parent university is a peculiar feature of the Italian higher education system. While this phenomenon has often been viewed as a negative development, with critics suggesting that satellite campuses needlessly duplicate existing courses and do not generate any economic benefits, the few empirical analyses carried out so far in Italy provide a more nuanced interpretation. By bringing together different strands of literature on the role of universities in the regional economy, the article suggests many possible ways in which satellite campuses may contribute to their local economies - for instance, by stimulating demand for goods and services, research activities, innovation and human capital formation. These potential contributions are then assessed through a case study: the satellite campuses of the university of Turin located in the Cuneo province, in the north-west of Italy. Findings from this case study enable us to gain better understanding of the role placed by satellite campuses in stimulating local development.
Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D collaboration policy, carr... more Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D collaboration policy, carried out in Tuscany (Italy), we investigate different types of persistent network additionality, namely persistence effect, breadth effect, composition effect, and depth effect. Our findings reveal that this R&D collaboration policy has been able to generate some persistent changes in the networking behaviour of participating firms, particularly fostering their collaboration with universities. Network additionality has been greater for firms that were previously accustomed to collaborating with other firms, than for less collaborative firms. With respect to the former firms, we also find a composition effect, which implies a change in their type of partners in innovation-related activities. We find, instead, no evidence of network breadth and network depth effects.
In parallel with the interest in networks of innovation on the part of the academic literature, p... more In parallel with the interest in networks of innovation on the part of the academic literature, policymakers are increasingly recognizing the important systemic nature of innovation processes, involving many agents often engaged in networks of
This chapter discusses how to appropriately measure the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from ... more This chapter discusses how to appropriately measure the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from university to industry. It shows that the assessment systems implemented in several countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia and Europe) adopt rather narrow views of what constitute relevant knowledge transfer activities and their impacts, leading to the selection of partial indicators that might not allow all institutions to represent their knowledge transfer performance accurately. We derive some implications for the measurement of universities’ performance and for the assessment of policies in support of knowledge production and transfer more generally.
We investigate the determinants of industry researchers’ interactions with universities in differ... more We investigate the determinants of industry researchers’ interactions with universities in different localities, distinguishing between local and international universities. We analyze the extent to which local and international interactions are enabled by different types of individual personal networks (education, career based), and by their access to different business networks through their employer companies (local vs. domestic or international multinational company networks). We control for selection bias and numerous other individual and firm-level factors identified in the literature as important determinants of interaction with universities. Our findings suggest that industry researchers’ personal networks play a greater role in promoting interactions with local universities (i.e. in the same region, and other regions in the same country) while researcher employment in a multinational is especially important for establishing interaction with universities abroad.
This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities'... more This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities' knowledge transfer activities. We argue that different knowledge transfer activities, based on different models of how knowledge flows from university to industry, require different indicators for monitoring. We then compare, in light of these different models, four monitoring exercises currently implemented in the UK, US and Canada, Australia and Europe. We derive some specific implications for the measurement of universities' performance as well as some more general implications for the assessment of policies in support of knowledge production and transfer.
Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university inst... more Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university institutions engage in knowledge transfer activities, and study the institutional and environmental factors that influence their efficiency. While most current studies limit their focus to intellectual property disclosures, we focus on a broad range of knowledge transfer outputs that include also research and consultancy contracts, professional training courses, and public engagements.
This study was conducted in the framework of the research project 'Poli.in_Analisi e modellizzazi... more This study was conducted in the framework of the research project 'Poli.in_Analisi e modellizzazione dei poli di innovazione in Toscana', co-funded by Tuscany region and the Department of Economics 'Marco Biagi', university of Modena and reggio Emilia. The authors wish to thank Albino Caporale, Emanuele Fabbri, Angelita Luciani, Serena Brogi, and the managers of the Innovation poles for their support in data collection. Opinions and conclusions expressed are attributable only to the authors.
International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship
We investigate whether – and how – small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to capitali... more We investigate whether – and how – small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to capitalise on their engagement with academics in order to explore new opportunities beyond the achievement of the immediate objectives of their collaboration. Using empirical evidence drawn from academic–SME collaborations supported by the Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme in the United Kingdom, we find that for many SMEs, engagement with academics has led to new business opportunities, including new market creation, new project engagement, new venture creation and new strategic network development. The exploration of new business opportunities is facilitated when three overarching factors are present: (1) a capable boundary spanner, who creates bridges within the SME and between the SME and the university, and gains an in-depth knowledge of the collaboration’s content; (2) a committed SME leadership willing to allocate resources and permissions to the collaboration, and encouraging an op...
Researchers have argued that management academics' engagement with nonacademic stakeholders invol... more Researchers have argued that management academics' engagement with nonacademic stakeholders involves knowledge co-production rather than simple knowledge transfer from the former to the latter. This study suggests that the conceptual lens of knowledge co-production not only more fittingly describes academic engagement but also enables a clearer understanding of how academic engagement produces impact beyond academia. Building upon qualitative evidence on collaborations between management academics and businesses in the United Kingdom, the study supports the characterisation of academic engagement as knowledge co-production and argues that its impact (i) strongly depends on sustained knowledge co-producing interactions, (ii) 'ripples out' serendipitously, indirectly benefiting many stakeholders in ways that often cannot be anticipated, and (iii) unfolds and persists over a long period. These findings have implications for impact assessment and the development of the impact research agenda.
We contribute to the debate on the assessment of the behavioural effects of policies by investiga... more We contribute to the debate on the assessment of the behavioural effects of policies by investigating which features of policy interventions in support of innovation networks, if any, improve the firms' ability to form subsequent relationships. In order to do so, we analyse the evolution of dyadic relationships within a set of policy interventions implemented by the Italian region of Tuscany between 2002 and 2008, aimed at supporting innovation projects performed by networks of heterogeneous agents. Our analysis shows that the observed policies have changed the relational pattern of the firms, pushing them to collaborate-often in a stable way-with a number of agents. We find that a large sectoral heterogeneity among agents is generally associated with a lower probability of networking; and that the presence of specialized intermediaries increases the firms' ability to network with universities.
In competitive knowledge-based economies, policymakers recognise the importance of universities' ... more In competitive knowledge-based economies, policymakers recognise the importance of universities' engagement in third mission activities. This paper investigates how a specific policy approach to encourage third mission engagement-the use of performance-based funding to reward universities' success in this domain-aligns with the broader goals of third mission policy. Considering the case of the United Kingdom (UK), the first country to have implemented a system of this kind, we analyse how the system has come into being and how it has evolved, and we discuss whether its implementation is likely to encourage universities to behave in ways that are aligned with the goals of third mission policy, as outlined in government documents. We argue that the system encourages universities to focus on a narrow range of income-producing third mission activities, and this is not well aligned with the policy goal to support a complex innovation ecosystem comprising universities with different third mission objectives and strategies. The paper concludes by proposing possible avenues for achieving greater alignment between incentives and policy goals.
An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovato... more An important, but under-researched, question in relation to policies funding networks of innovators is: what kind of innovation networks should be supported, if the policy objective is not just to sponsor successful innovation projects, but also to encourage the participants to form networks with desirable characteristics? Focusing on a set of policy programmes implemented by the regional government of Tuscany, in Italy, between 2002 and 2008, aimed at funding networks of collaborating organisations, we investigate whether the imposition of requirements on the composition of the networks that would be eligible for funding-in particular, the demand that networks should comply with minimum size and heterogeneity thresholds-influenced the participants' networking behaviour in the context of successive policy interventions. Our results show that these requirements immediately affected the size and composition of the project networks that applied for funding, although not always in the intended direction. However, these effects did not extend to the successive periods, when those requirements were no longer in force. This suggests that the imposition of policy requirements, per se, is unlikely to induce persistent changes in organizations' networking behaviour. Other approaches such as implementing outreach actions in order to encourage new organisations to participate in existing innovation networks and to form new ones, and additional measures designed to foster learning opportunities for the participants, might be more effective tools to influence the networking behaviour of participating organisations.
Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Piedmont Chamber of Commerce for help with data collection... more Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Piedmont Chamber of Commerce for help with data collection, and particularly to Barbara Barazza for her support and comments. The UIPIE database used for this analysis was created with the support of the project IAMAT coordinated by Fondazione Rosselli. Financial support from the European Commission (FP6) Project, NEST-2006-PATH-Cul, CID, Contract n.: FP6-043345 is gratefully acknowledged. For very helpful comments that have greatly improved the paper, we are grateful to the participants in the EAEPE conference "The economic crisis and the renewal of the European model(s): Revisiting the debate on varieties of capitalism", Bordeaux, October 28-30, 2010, and to three anonymous reviewers. Running title: Collaboration objectives and the location of the university partner
The reflections that have driven the research work proposed in this volume take the moves from th... more The reflections that have driven the research work proposed in this volume take the moves from theoretical questions that are intertwined in an intense confrontation with regional administrators, managers of service centers, researchers working on issues of technology transfer and innovation. The analytical work has allowed us to identify the conditions for fostering generative relationships and scaffolding structure (support structures) effective in supporting innovation processes in systems of small and medium enterprises. A coherent set of policies for innovation must address issues arising at different time scales and at different levels of political and social organization (municipalities, regions, individual countries to the European Union) and must be able to identify, for each level, the agents on which a lever to stimulate and support innovation. What tools do we have to identify these agents, and to monitor and evaluate the processes of innovation and not only innovations and their effects? In the essays in this volume innovation is seen as a social process characterized by interactions among heterogeneous agents. Interactions involving many aspects (cognitive, social, technological, economic and political) that develop over weeks, or sometimes for decades, and which take place in many locations (from universities to industrial research centers both public and private, from regulatory agencies to trade associations, professional orders, to the organization of the markets). Each interaction process, in each of these locations, it can create "bottlenecks" that prevent the creation or the emergence of innovations. If we consider the interaction a key element of the innovation process, then we need to explore in more depth what are the relevant ones and in what contexts (think of the system of education and training, the university system, the public research system and that of private research, financial institutions, under the conditions laid down by law governing exchanges between the actors and intellectual property). We must also ask what types of organizations, and under what activities are involved in the process innovative. Where interactions between agents are not generating desired results in terms of innovation, such tools can change the structure of the interactions? With reference to the systems of small and medium enterprises, the contributions collected in the volume identify some answers to these questions and deepen the analysis of their implications for innovation policy. Two axes of reasoning will guide the reading: the theories of innovation, in the first part of the volume, reflections on policies to support innovation, in the second part.
In the knowledge-based economy, innovation is a key driver of firm creation, employment generatio... more In the knowledge-based economy, innovation is a key driver of firm creation, employment generation and, more broadly, economic growth. New business ventures and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role in supporting innovation and its ...
We explore how the implementation of a set of policy programmes over a period of six years induce... more We explore how the implementation of a set of policy programmes over a period of six years induced some "emergent" learning effects which had not originally been envisaged by policymakers. This way, we show how policy evaluation can be used not only to assess the expected impact of policy interventions but also to discover their unexpected behavioural effects, and therefore provides an important instrument to guide the design of future interventions.
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Journal Articles by Federica Rossi
The opening of satellite campuses in the vicinity of a parent university is a peculiar feature of the Italian higher education system. While this phenomenon has often been viewed as a negative development, with critics suggesting that satellite campuses needlessly duplicate existing courses and do not generate any economic benefits, the few empirical analyses carried out so far in Italy provide a more nuanced interpretation. By bringing together different strands of literature on the role of universities in the regional economy, the article suggests many possible ways in which satellite campuses may contribute to their local economies - for instance, by stimulating demand for goods and services, research activities, innovation and human capital formation. These potential contributions are then assessed through a case study: the satellite campuses of the university of Turin located in the Cuneo province, in the north-west of Italy. Findings from this case study enable us to gain better understanding of the role placed by satellite campuses in stimulating local development.
Papers by Federica Rossi
The opening of satellite campuses in the vicinity of a parent university is a peculiar feature of the Italian higher education system. While this phenomenon has often been viewed as a negative development, with critics suggesting that satellite campuses needlessly duplicate existing courses and do not generate any economic benefits, the few empirical analyses carried out so far in Italy provide a more nuanced interpretation. By bringing together different strands of literature on the role of universities in the regional economy, the article suggests many possible ways in which satellite campuses may contribute to their local economies - for instance, by stimulating demand for goods and services, research activities, innovation and human capital formation. These potential contributions are then assessed through a case study: the satellite campuses of the university of Turin located in the Cuneo province, in the north-west of Italy. Findings from this case study enable us to gain better understanding of the role placed by satellite campuses in stimulating local development.