The Third Mission of the university: A systematic literature review on potentials and constraints

In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on Universities to shift from focusing primarily on teaching and performing research, and to add an equivocal Third Mission (TM), labelled \u201ca contribution to society\u201d. Unprecedented challenges have been redesigning the missions of Universities, which are often perceived as being at a crossroads. The TM is a multidisciplinary, complex, evolving phenomenon linked to the social and economic mission of Universities in a broad sense. Existing studies mainly focus on Universities in accomplishing their traditional missions, or they offer a narrow perspective of the TM. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic literature review has been performed on the TM to comprehensively explore its heterogeneous functions, constraints, clashes and incorporation within education and research. This paper presents a systematic review of the state of knowledge and develops a novel framework for the enactment of the TM. The paper reveals the potential and the constraints of the recurring themes of the TM, focusing especially on the engagement of non-academic stakeholders. It also suggests, to scholars and policymakers, a selection of measures through which some of the challenges might be faced. The paper offers both a descriptive and a thematic analysis, through examination of 134 peer-reviewed articles which were published between 2004 and May 2019

Identification of University Inventors and University Patenting Patterns at Lund University:Conceptual- Methodological & Empirical Findings

One of the most interesting indicators to show the change in the socio-economic role of universities in the last several decades has been the use of university patenting. However except some individual studies in European countries (e.g. Finland, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Germany and France) there has been no such a comprehensive data available for Sweden and most other European countries. The main motivation of this paper is therefore to obtain a systematic database on university patenting activities in Sweden. The main method of this research is data-matching between the EPO-patents and Lund University Faculty registers, and manual controls. The methodology of this research underlines the importance of searching for university-patents by the name of university inventors rather their affiliated university. The rate of patenting activity showed a positive trend between the years 1990 and 2004. 458 patents have been filed by Lund University researchers. The total number of inventors is 250. Although the number of large firms is lesser than the SMEs, the former group (e.g. Ericsson, Astra-Zeneca) has applied for a larger number of patents than the total number of patents of SMEs.university patents; technology transfer; innovation; Swedish Model

Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives on Higher Education Management and Transformation

As an interdisciplinary field of study, higher education research is still underdeveloped in terms of theoretical matureness and rigour. This book offers perspectives on how a range of methodological choices, theoretical approaches and conceptualisations from other disciplines can be successfully applied and utilised in the context of higher education. As a reader compiled of independent chapters, the book is particularly aimed at PhD students in the field of higher education administration. The book consists of three parts: I Methodological Approaches – examples for early career researchers; II Conceptual Approaches Utilised to Understanding University Transformation; and, III Scholarly Traditions Applied to Understand Universities and Academic Work. The first part highlights the importance of methods in research, and provides examples of academic dissertations with strong methodological groundings. In the second part, the authors provide theoretical and conceptual aids to analyse the transformation of higher education. The third part focuses on how traditional and well-established theoretical approaches can be applied to higher education settings in terms of, for example, research questions

Fostering national research networks: The case of Turkish coauthorship patterns in the social sciences

We analyse the coauthorship networks of researchers affiliated at universities in Turkey by using two databases: the international SSCI database and the Turkish ULAKBIM database. We find that coauthorship networks are composed largely of isolated groups, permitting little knowledge diffusion. Moreover, there seems to be two disparate populations of researchers. While some scholars publish mostly in the international journals, others target the national audience, and there is very little intersection between the two populations. The same observation is valid for universities, among which there is very little collaboration. Our results point out that while Turkish social sciences and humanities publications have been growing impressively in the last decade, domestic networks to ensure the dissemination of knowledge and of research output are very weak and should be supported by domestic policies.Research collaboration, coauthorship, networks, research policy.

How Does Convergence Influence Cluster-Based Economic Growth in Regions?

This thesis is a novel study examining the influence of convergenceon cluster-based economicgrowth in regions. The goal of which isto provide exploratory insights frombothnational and international perspectives. This research study examines the relevant literature in thefieldsof convergence,clusters,and regions. It thenadoptsideologies from the most salient studies,to create a conceptual framework. There is limitedextantliterature currently available on the connection between convergence, cluster-based economicgrowth,and regions. AnOECD (2011) report identified the importance of regions as they are themost effective place to make economic decisions. The convergence approachof moving towards equality, bottom-up growth,and co-opetition can be regarded as being imperative to the successful augmentation of a region. This research used a qualitative method (Bryman and Bell, 2015) with 30 semi-structured interviews. The rationale behind the use of a qualitative methodology (Fidel, 2008),is the limitedliteratureavailableon convergence.Therefore, in order tounderstand how convergenceinfluences cluster-based economic growth in regions, it is essential to conductaqualitativestudy andanalysis (Rocha, 2004)

Higher education systems and industrial innovation : January 1998 to 31 May 2001

Co-ordinator of project SESI : Eric Verdier - LEST (France). Partners : Alice Lam - CBS (United Kingdom) ; Christoph Buechtemann – CRIS (Germany) ; Helena Lopes - DINAMIA (Portugal) ; Lorenz Lassnigg - IHS (Austria) ; Jean-Michel Plassard - LIRHE (France)132 p.The objective of the research was to gather empirical evidence about efficient ways of organising the linkages and interfaces between higher education institutions (including research units) and private sector firms in order to spur industrial innovation. One of the project's principal aims was to combine two dimensions which are often considered separately : firstly, the construction of the competences and the professionalities of the actors involved in innovation, and, secondly, transfers of knowledge from higher education to firms and vice versa. Five European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Portugal, UK) were selected in order to provide, at least by way of an initial hypothesis, national systems that were sufficiently disparate from the point of view of the resources "offered" to companies, be it in terms of institutions, organisations or actors. It was essential to include the United States. Indeed, the relations between higher education and companies which have evolved in that country are undoubtedly an international point of reference Three sectors were chosen in each country as being representative of the new challenges emerging for the relationship between higher education and industry in key sectors where generic technologies are tending to develop, albeit in different ways. The investigations within more than 40 firms form the empirical basis of this project. The main results could be summarized as follows :1.The type of skills and competence profiles required of R&D workers are now more demanding in multiple dimensions, particularly in the combination of technical disciplinary expertise with a broad range of business, management and social skills. Emerging evidence suggests that firms are developing 'extended internal labour markets' (EILMs ) through closer links with key universities. The social networks embedded in such EILMs facilitate training and rapid transmission of evolving (uncodified) knowledge. 2. The sample of multinational firms we have selected enables us to take stock of the moves towards industrial rationalization taken by firms seeking to develop their technological globalization strategies by exploiting a diversity of cognitive resources. Preparation for the recruitment and integration of young graduates play crucial roles in the absorption of knowledge. 3. We found six coherent types of science industry relations that we describe precisely. These results further confirm the criticality of research agendas compatibility, favouring two different ways of collaborating associating an industrial partner and an academic one. 4. The analysis identifies four main types of intermediate actors : those actors who are the medium for an economic relationship between the firm and the HERS; the "gatekeepers", who work for a firm or a HERS ; the hybrid actors have been through the process of aligning the practices, rules and values of their "home" system (industry or academia) with those of their partner ; those who are involved in the trilateral network but are independent or on the road to being independent of the partners. 5. Labour-market entry of graduates is one of the factors which allows us to introduce all the signalling/human capital/network problematics and relate it to the emergence of an new form of labour market which combines the mechanisms of the internal and external markets. In spite of this diversity of practices, however, we maintain the hypothesis that it is possible to identify dominant forms of these relations which differ from one country to another. 6. Nevertheless the report insists on the increasing human capital mobility in high tech sectors and supply some evidence of an emerging European innovation systems. 7. Considering a US-Germany comparison, we infer that in IPR matters, German public research institutes – representative of the European continental situation - are facing a dilemma: they need to provide more pre-development type services for industry, involving stricter IPR claims from corporate partners and they also need to retain IPR in core areas of expertise in order to prevent a "bleeding out" and remain a partner for industry in the future.Finally the report provides different policy formulations and recommendations. We underline that for firms, the main objective is to resolve the problems posed by the transition from knowledge to competences. With an OLM of PhD level, the firms, especially very small ones, enable to have easier access to a suitably trained workforce. By promoting the circulation of knowledge, these markets help to reduce the previous conceptual gaps and to promote the creation of greater absorptive capacities at firms, as well as sustaining the spirit of mutual trust and reciprocity in which these networks were founded.At the national level, the lessons learned by public policy makers will be dealt with them in the generalfollowing order :- The United Kingdom, where the policies and regulations are typically market oriented is undergoing a process of specialization.- In France and Germany, where the relations between Science and Industry are facing fairly similar challenges, the scenario tends to alternated between radical change and a process of accommodation.- Austria and Portugal, which have rather different technological and industrial structures, but are both facing the special challenge of adapting the small scale national systems of innovation to the European Union and world-wide competition in general

Investigating the interplay between fundamentals of national research systems: performance, investments and international collaborations

We discuss, at the macro-level of nations, the contribution of research funding and rate of international collaboration to research performance, with important implications for the science of science policy. In particular, we cross-correlate suitable measures of these quantities with a scientometric-based assessment of scientific success, studying both the average performance of nations and their temporal dynamics in the space defined by these variables during the last decade. We find significant differences among nations in terms of efficiency in turning (financial) input into bibliometrically measurable output, and we confirm that growth of international collaboration positively correlate with scientific success, with significant benefits brought by EU integration policies. Various geo-cultural clusters of nations naturally emerge from our analysis. We critically discuss the possible factors that potentially determine the observed patterns