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Effect of basic research and applied research on the universities’ innovation capabilities: the moderating role of private research funding

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Abstract

This paper explores the impacts of basic research and applied research on the universities’ innovation capabilities and examines the role of private research funding. First, this paper divides universities’ innovation capabilities into scientific innovation capabilities and technological innovation capabilities according to the Pasteur’s quadrant paradigm. Second, based on a survey of 61 universities directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education of China, this study conducts an empirical analysis using the partial least squares path model. The results indicate that the complementary or substitutable effect of basic research and applied research on the promotion of universities’ innovation capabilities is different in the two dimension. Furthermore, the private research funding negatively moderates the effect of applied research on universities’ innovation capabilities, as well as the two dimensions. The paper provides quantitative evidence for Chinese practice from universities’ perspective and proposes recommendations for future development.

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Notes

  1. The terms ‘industry’, ‘business’, ‘private’, and ‘market’ funding must be understood as synonymous locutions referring to funding that universities raise from scientific activities to conduct research activities, consultancies and services sold on the market in response to the exclusive interest of the commissioning entity, independent from its public or private legal nature, which can be regarded as an effective proxy of collaborations capable of activating knowledge transfer processes based on high relationality (Muscio et al., 2013). Briefly, private research funding is funding that industry and institutions sponsor (Thursby and Thursby, 2011a). It is provided in one of the three manners, either ‘contracts’, ‘consulting’ or ‘cooperative agreements’ (Bozeman and Gaughan, 2007).

  2. In China, universities belong to two major categories: universities directly under the central government and those managed by local governments. The former are mainly those directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education. After the adjustment of the university management system, a group of strong, distinct characteristics of the university fellunder the management of the Ministry of Education. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, most key universities have been directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education. Most universities directly under the Ministry of Education are funded by Project 985 and Project 211. 985 project was announced in 1998 to build 30 world-class prestigious schools. So far, there have been 39 universities funded by Project 985 in China. 211 project was approved in 1995, which purpose is to build 100 famous schools in China. So far, there have been 116 universities funded by Project 211 in China. The relationship between the three kinds of universities is, all 985 universities are 211 universities, all universities directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education are 211 universities, and most 985 universities are universities directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Therefore, universities directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education are those ranking top university in China, which have a graduate school and a 985 subject platform with strong research capabilities. In addition, these universities have resource advantage with funds from the Ministry of Education and local government support. With sufficient funds, they develop faster than others.

  3. The statistical information does not have a specific database, but instead has multiple databases. For example, the statistical information of the South China University of Technology was provided by a third party company, Innography, which is a large patent document database that includes more than 100 million patent documents from over 100 countries.

  4. Scientific works published by official publishing departments, including public and internal issuing.

  5. Publication of academic papers, including foreign academic journals.

  6. This indicator is not one of statistical information. PCE is the number of articles co-authored with enterprises. The data source is Web of Science.

  7. Patent authorization. The data source comes from multiple databases, not just SIPO-issued patents or USPTO and so on.

  8. Technical transfer fees from the technology transfer contrast. The contract of technology transfer includes four types: patent assignment contracts, transfer contracts of patent application rights, transfer technology secret contracts and licensing contracts.

  9. In reality, university-industry collaboration means the linkages between the university and industry in most countries, while in China, it means the collaboration between three parties, including the university, industry and research institution. Institutions are generally established by the state with a certain public interest but do not belong to government agencies. In general, the government will provide financial assistance to these institutions, whetherfully allocating funds to public institutions or funding different institutions. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a typical representative of institutions.

  10. The division of universities types is based on subject by the Ministry of Education of China. The existing universities are divided into 13 categories. However, they are divided into 6 categories based on the GaodengXuexiaoKejiTongjiZiliaoHuibian, comprehensive, technology, agriculture and forestry, medicine, normal and others. Comprehensive university refers to an institution with a comprehensive discipline (including philanthropy, literature, science, engineering, management and other disciplines), a large scale of school, strong scientific research strength and comprehensive strength powerful, such as Peking university. Technology university is developed on the basis of applied science, physics, chemistry and other basic sciences, to solve the needs of industries, such as South China University of Technology. Agriculture and forestry university refers to college with agroforestry as the main subject, such as China Agricultural University. Medicine university refers to college with majors in medicine, such as China Pharmaceutical University. Normal university refers to university mainly based on teacher education, such as Central China Normal University. In addition to these five types of university, other types of schools are collectively referred to as others university. In this paper, others university refers to legal and language school, such as China University of Political Science and Law, Communication University of China.

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Funding

This research is supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71473086, 71233003), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2016A030312005), and the Key Projects of Pholosophy and Social Sciences Research, Ministry of education (Grant No. 12JZD042).

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  1. School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, No. 381, Wushan Road, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Xia Fan & Zhou Yu

  2. School of Economics and Management, Hubei University of Technology, No. 28, Nanli Road, Wuhan, 430068, China

    Xiaowan Yang

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Correspondence to Xiaowan Yang.

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Fan, X., Yang, X. & Yu, Z. Effect of basic research and applied research on the universities’ innovation capabilities: the moderating role of private research funding. Scientometrics 126, 5387–5411 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03998-9

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