Three essays on university-industry technology transfer and the economics of science

In the first chapter of this thesis, coauthored with Patrick Gaulé, we reexamine the widely held belief, known as the "European Paradox", that while European academic institutions are good at producing academic research outputs, they lag behind US academic institution when it comes to transfer these outputs to the economy. Using new survey data and controlling for standard factors affecting the productivity of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), we find that European TTOs do not execute less licenses than US TTOs. However, they earn significantly less revenue from licenses. We relate the difference in licensing income to differences in the organization and staffing of TTOs. Specifically, US TTOs employ more staff with experience in industry and appear to have greater flexibility in managing their budget. In the second chapter, we examine a policy regime allowing academic institutions to grant industry the intellectual property rights (IPRs) over invention resulting from collaborations. For projects that are close to the market, where a firm plays an important role in generating an invention, the researcher offers the IPRs to the firm, as an incentive to collaborate. However, he retains certain domains where he can exploit an invention without having to apply for a license. The choice of these domains involves a tradeoff. In fact, the researcher either induces the firm's effort, by assigning a broad field of use, or he ensures that he can use an invention in other applications, by granting a narrow field of use. The reverse occurs for projects that are close to the researcher's laboratory, where it is the researcher who plays an important role in generating an invention. The main difference, however, is that if effort were contractible, the firm could reward the researcher for supplying the first best level of effort, because, unlike the researcher, it is not cash constrained. An empirical analysis, based on École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne research contracts, supports the role of broad fields in bolstering a firm's effort, in projects that are close to the market. The third chapter analyzes the extent of state dependence in obtaining basic and applied science grants and the impact of receiving a grant of one type on the probability of being awarded one of the other type in the future. For this purpose, we used a sample of grants for basic and applied research purposes awarded to academic researchers at the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. We find that, having controlled for unobserved heterogeneity, there is persistence in obtaining both basic and applied science grants. Moreover, the impact of having obtained, in the past, only grants of one type on the number of grants of the other type awarded to a researcher is not significantly different from the impact of not having received any grant.

Managing innovations resulting from university-industry collaborations

Annamaria Conti

We consider a policy regime allowing academic institutions to grant industry the intellectual property rights (IPRs) over invention resulting from collaborations. If a firm plays an important role in generating an invention, the researcher offers the IPRs to the firm, as an incentive to collaborate. However, he retains certain domains where he can exploit an invention without having to apply for a license. The choice of these domains involves a tradeoff. In fact, the researcher either induces the firm's effort, by assigning a broad field of use, or he ensures that he can use an invention in other applications, by granting a narrow field of use. The reverse occurs if it is the researcher who plays an important role in generating an invention. The main difference, however, is that if effort were contractible, the firm could reward the researcher for supplying the first best level of effort, because, unlike the researcher, it is not cash constrained. An empirical analysis, based on École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne research contracts, supports the role of broad fields in bolstering a firm's effort, when the latter is important for generating an invention.

2009

Academic Licensing: a European Study

Annamaria Conti, Dominique Foray, Patrick Gaulé

This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact that different organisational forms of the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in Europe have on their licensing activity. Given the great diversity of organization forms prevailing across European TTOs, our paper attempts to shed more light on which of those forms might be more efficient. We use as a measure of efficiency and as dependent variable of our model the number of license agreements concluded. Controlling for staff, invention disclosures, quality of the academic institution, life science orientation and demand for technology, we find evidence for the importance of personnel with a PhD in science in the TTO to facilitate communication between academics and the TTO. We find that the age of the TTO has a significant but negative effect. We do not find a positive effect for private organization of the TTO. Our data is derived from the 2004-2005 survey on TTO activities by the Association of European Science and Technology Professionals (ASTP) and information collected from TTO web sites.

2007

Institutions and Incentives in Knowledge Production and Diffusion: From Science to Innovation

Charles Chadi Ayoubi

This thesis presents four essays providing novel empirical and theoretical insights on the incentives and institutional structures that favor knowledge production and diffusion. The first two studies analyze these processes in the realm of scientific research, while the last two essays evaluate broader applications with vast social welfare implications. The first essay (chapter 2) of this dissertation, in collaboration with Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin, exploits a dataset on all applicants to a prestigious Swiss grant to explore a central process in academic life: the application for funds. The results suggest that scientists applying to a grant significantly increase their publicationsâ quality and quantity, learn more, and extend their collaboration network. Beyond the effect of applying, receiving the research funds increases the probability of co-authoring with co-applicants, but it does not have any additional effect on other scientific outcomes. These results justified the title of the chapter since, as it is the case in the Olympics, in research grants, âthe important thing is not to win, it is to take part.â The second essay (chapter 3), also in collaboration with Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin, uses the same empirical context to explore the determinants of knowledge flows among collaborating scientists. The chapter proposes a novel methodology based on journal references to track knowledge flows among researchers working together. The results suggest that geographical distance does not significantly affect the knowledge flows between team members, but the cognitive distance separating two members does. More specifically, there is an inverted U-curve effect of cognitive distance on the learning among team members: the higher the distance between two scientists in terms of subjects studied, the more they exchange knowledge, up to the point when the distance becomes detrimental because they have too little common ground to communicate. The third essay (chapter 4), in collaboration with Boris Thurm, goes beyond the exploration of the determinants for scientistsâ knowledge production and diffusion to delve into the incentives of all individuals to exchange knowledge. The chapter has two major contributions. First, it acts as a literature review of the empirical evidence on non-financial incentives for knowledge diffusion, such as social recognition, career prospects, and moral considerations. Second, the chapter proposes a simple economic model with heterogeneous agents holding both selfish and moral motives to derive some novel policy implications. The last essay (chapter 5), in collaboration with Dominique Foray, delves into a specific case of knowledge diffusion, the integration of machine learning technologies in healthcare. The analysis suggests that machine learning has the potential for spurring innovation in healthcare but faces several institutional levers. Collecting quantitative data on patents and publications, and qualitative data on hospitals, the results show that machine learning affects healthcare in different ways than older information and communication technologies. The apparition of new business models encourages tech giants to enter the healthcare sector. These patterns have the potential to increase social welfare by reducing externalities in terms of innovation complementarities, but they pose new challenges such as competition policy and human capital formation.

EPFL2020

Institutions and Incentives in Knowledge Production and Diffusion: From Science to Innovation

Charles Chadi Ayoubi

EPFL2020