Universities and Regional Development

This focused issue entitled “Universities and Regional Development” contains three papers. All three papers focus on universities and their involvement in translating research for commercialization, which in turn supports economic development that often extends beyond the local region. The first paper is focused on the United Kingdom (UK) and highlights the importance of data collection on spin-offs from universities (USOs) given that such data can provide a comprehensive analysis of the contribution of USOs to local-regional innovation ecosystems. The second paper focuses on the effort undertaken by university administrators to foster interuniversity collaboration for licensing by pooling resources from three prominent universities, with different institutional agendas, in the Research Triangle Park. The collaborative effort was short-lived, but the legacy of that effort endures to this day. This paper highlights the institutional barriers to interuniversity collaborations, but also shows examples where such collaborations are still ongoing. The final paper examines the role of external pressures (e.g. economic crises) on research expenditures and performance (e.g. patenting, disclosures) in universities. The study context includes three universities from Georgia in the United States. The paper shows the need for further research in understanding the role of external pressures in the higher education sector, controlling for internal R&D specializations and scale issues.

Bagchi-Sen, Baines, and Lawton Smith offer a comprehensive understanding of USOs in in their article entitled “Characteristics and Outputs of University Spin-offs in the United Kingdom.” The paper sheds light on USO trends and the contributions of these firms to their local regions. As expected, research-intensive universities produce the most USOs. As a result, value creation can be directly attributed to Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London (UCL), and the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). The study confirms findings from the United States that university-based resources (e.g. staff at technology transfer offices), reputation, and other attributes from the local-regional innovation ecosystem play a role in positioning the university in establishing spin-offs in their respective regions. The evidence shows that most USOs are in the early stages of their life cycle except for those in the South East UK (Oxford, Southampton) and Northern Ireland (Queen’s Belfast) regions, where large USOs do exist. Nevertheless, the findings show that USOs in many UK regions remain small with limited patent and product portfolios. Although it is difficult to find data from government sources about the contribution of USOs to specific regional clusters, the evidence from this research shows that the following three regions can boast significant contributions from USOs: East of England (Cambridge University), Northern Ireland (Queen’s Belfast), and the South East (Oxford and Southampton universities). USOs may match local cluster patterns or add to the variety—the latter reflect the specialization unique to their founder/university, which may or may not match local industrial characteristics.

The paper entitled “Institutional Evolution and the Collaborative Development of Technology Transfer Capabilities” by Donegan and Feldman examine the context, formation, functions, and legacy of the short-lived Triangle University Licensing Consortium (TULCO) in North Carolina’s Research Triangle region as an illustrative example of interuniversity collaborations. The consortium started in 1988 and was completely dissolved in 1995. The context was the need to accelerate the commercialization of discoveries from federally funded research at universities following the passage of the Bayh–Dole Act (Bayh–Dole) in 1980. The region already had experience in high technology given the success of The Research Triangle Park, which was established in 1958. The President of the University of North Carolina system engaged a consulting firm to evaluate technology transfer activities of member institutions. This consulting firm recommended interuniversity technology transfer collaboration. The result was the formation of TULCO, which would pool resources to specialize in licensing to specific industries from Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The paper uses archival material and key informant interviews to show how each university benefited from TULCO—for example, the move of key personnel to UNC Chapel Hill after working at two other consortium member institutions played a role in disseminating technology transfer practices and further collaboration among various institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the reasons behind the closure of TULCO, that is, why the model was unsustainable. However, other models exist and future research needs to continue to examine the organizational strategies utilized by TULCO for fostering interuniversity collaborations.

The paper by Zhang, Clayton, and Breznitz focuses on the trends in research funding and performance at three research universities in Atlanta, Georgia, between 2002 and 2015: Emory University, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University. The research explains possible reasons behind the lackluster research performance at Georgia Tech and Georgia State vis-à-vis Emory University. The study utilizes data from secondary sources such as the National Science Foundation and AUTM, as well as data from interviews conducted by the researchers. The primary data draw out pressures on faculty in public universities given a reduction in state funding during the study period—for example, such pressures increased faculty-student ratios and interfered with research performance. Faculty members noted spending an increased amount of time writing grant proposals to generate research support. The analysis also shows the importance of specializations (e.g. life sciences, engineering) at the university level and its role in generating research expenditures. This study offers ideas for future research given the dearth of data at the institutional level on the role of external pressures on internal organizational changes and resultant performance outcomes in the higher education sector.

The three papers in this special issue show that comprehensive data at the organizational level is key toward understanding the needs and role of higher educational institutions in facilitating translational research that has the potential for broader impacts at multiple scales.