Profile of public laboratories, industrial partnerships and organisation of R & D: the dynamics of industrial relationships in a large research organisation

There is a paucity of papers dealing with the system characteristics of laboratories or, put in another way, the institutional character of research organisations. Neither R & D economics nor the sociology of science, as traditionally conceived, has made much headway in providing insight into sets of R & D laboratories and their evolution. Drawing upon an empirical study in the plant breeding and biochemical industry, this paper presents a typology of public research laboratories which is based on three dimensions: scientific production and visibility, type of funding (public or private) and homogeneity of research themes. Three types of public laboratory emerge: the first, called “research centres for the profession”, is composed essentially of laboratories with close ties with small and medium firms (SMEs) and industry associations. The second, called “designers of generic tools and methods”, is oriented towards basic research and themes of general interest to the industry as a whole. The third type, called “basic and specialised laboratories”, strives to develop its scientific visibility. Contracts between this type of laboratory and industry are mainly bilateral and demonstrate the complementarity between public and private research. Each type of laboratory develops specific types of relationship with private partners. The authors have identified three logics underlying these relationships: proximity, market and club. The main objective of contracts based on a proximity logic is to test a hypothesis, while the knowledge produced is mostly tacit and specific. By contrast, knowledge is entirely coded and specific in the market logic, where the aim of the contract is to implement expertise in order to relieve a scientific bottleneck. In a club logic, the aim of contracts is to produce a technical referent. In each kind of contract, the learning trajectories, modes of co-ordination, role of trust and degree to which contracts are complete or not, are different.

Competing business models in the french biotech industry

Public authorities have recently supported development of the biotechnology sector by encouraging start-ups and creating favourable environments such as incubators, a specialised stock exchange or technopoles. The different programmes to encourage biotech development (subsidies for research performed jointly by firms and academic labs, subsidies for start-ups, creation of incubators) seem to be successful if the results are estimated in terms of the number of new firms (around 300 SMEs still in existence, since 1990). On 1 January 1999 France had just over 400 biotechnology SMEs employing a total of 15,000 people, with an estimated turnover of 2 billion euros. Average size in terms of number of employees per firm is about 40, compared to about 140 in the USA. All in all, biotechnology remains a small emergent sector compared to others such as agri-food (over 4,200 French firms with 372,300 employees and a turnover of 100 billion euros) or pharmaceuticals (94,500 employees in 271 firms and a turnover of 28,5 billion euros). The creation of start-ups during the past ten years raises questions on the future of these new biotech firms (DBFs) in France and in Europe. Will consolidation occur in Europe and, if so, when? Will maturity of the biotech sector be accompanied by the progressive disappearance of many of these firms and the growth of a few of them? Will the sector be structured along the same lines as the automobile industry, with large firms with a high capacity for integration of research performed elsewhere and a large number of specialised firms? What will the future be of the hundreds of small firms which focus on the local or regional market, especially service oriented firms? To answer these questions, this paper presents three business models of biotech firms. By referring to the governance modes of each business model of biotech SMEs, it provides us with a better understanding of the logic of development of biotechnology SMEs in France. The first part presents the linkages between business models and governance modes. The second part, based on a survey on half of the 400 dedicated biotech firms (DBFs) in France, presents an overview of these firms and their development. The third part presents an attempt to map out the development trajectories of SMEs and the respective leading forces in each type of firm. Concluding remarks present three possible scenarios of the evolution of the sector.

Assessing the Impact of Organizational Practices on the Productivity of University Technology Transfer Offices: An Exploratory Study

We present quantitative and qualitative evidence (field research) on university technology transfer offices (TTOs). These offices negotiate licensing agreements with firms to commercialize university-based technologies. A stochastic frontier production function framework is used to assess the relative productivity of 113 university TTOs. Our field research provided a useful reality check on the specification of the econometric model. The empirical findings imply that licensing activity is characterized by constant returns to scale. Environmental and institutional factors appear to explain some of the variation in TTO efficiency. Relative productivity may also depend on organizational practices in university management of intellectual property, which potentially attenuate palpable differences in the motives, incentives, and organizational cultures of the parties to licensing agreements. Unfortunately, there are no existing data on such practices, so we rely on inductive, qualitative methods to identify them. We present detailed information on our use of these methods. This information may be useful to economists who are contemplating fieldwork. Based on 55 interviews of managers/entrepreneurs and administrators at five research universities, we conclude that the most critical organizational factors are likely to be reward systems for faculty, TTO staffing and compensation practices, and actions taken by administrators to extirpate informational and cultural barriers between universities and firms.

Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: A Handbook of Best Practices, Vol. 1

Prepared by and for policy-makers, leaders of public sector research establishments, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientists, this online resource offers up-to-date information and strategies for utilizing the power of both intellectual property and the public domain. Emphasis is placed on advancing innovation in health and agriculture, though many of the principles outlined here are broadly applicable across technology fields. Eschewing ideological debates and general proclamations, the authors always keep their eye on the practical side of IP management. The site is based on a comprehensive Handbook and Executive Guide that provide substantive discussions and analysis of the opportunities awaiting anyone in the field who wants to put intellectual property to work. This multi-volume work contains 153 chapters on a full range of IP topics and over 50 case studies, composed by over 200 authors from North, South, East, and West. If you are a policymaker, a senior administrator, a technology transfer manager, or a scientist, we invite you to use the companion site guide available at http://www.iphandbook.org/index.html The site guide distills the key points of each IP topic covered by the Handbook into simple language and places it in the context of evolving best practices specific to your professional role within the overall picture of IP management

France's search for institutional schemes to promote innovation : the case of genomics

The subject of this paper is the relationship between the policy-making and the innovation performance in genomics and biomedical related biotechnologies in the national research and innovation system in France in 1990'. The aim is to highlight the relative effectiveness of the different public policies and their instruments compared to the action of the non for profit sector. Government policy has recently supported a development of the biotechnology sector by encouraging start-ups and creating favourable framework conditions such as incubators, a specialised stock exchange, financial institutions or technopoles. By studying the co-ordination mechanisms between the different organisations (non for profit organisations, public authorities, public sector research, biotech SMEs and large firms, especially in the biomedical sector), this paper shows that the path dependant institutions and the contradiction between the different policy tools to promote science base knowledge commercialisation can explain the poor development of biotech sector in France in the last few years, in spite of a high investment in the basic scientific researcb in life sciences.innovation system; S§T policy; biotechnology; genomics; Triple Helix model; France; policy-making; diffusion-oriented policy; science base knowledge

The International Trends in Plant Variety Protection

This paper examines international trends in plant variety protection, a form of intellectual property rights for plant varieties akin to patents. The TRIPs Agreement under the WTO has given a strong impetus for the universalisation of plant variety protection regimes with common standards of protection across countries. This paper argues that developed and developing countries are likely to adopt widely divergent approaches to the development of intellectual property rights for plant varieties. The special features of plant variety protection constrain the appropriability of economic returns from protected plant varieties. Consequently, in developed countries PVP is being seen as a relatively weak intellectual property right instrument. As stronger forms of protection for plant varieties become available, the importance of plant variety protection in developed countries may decline. Developing countries continue to debate the merits of extending intellectual property rights to agriculture, though they too are obliged under the TRIPs Agreement to protect plant varieties. Their concerns are focused on the “inequities†inherent in a system of plant breeders’ rights. Attempts by developing countries to incorporate farmers’ rights provisions in their PVP systems are likely to dilute the incentives for private investment in plant breeding.Intellectual Property Rights, Plant Variety Protection, Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade,