Access to universities’ public knowledge: who’s more nationalist?

[EN] Access to public knowledge is a prerequisite for the good functioning of developed economies. Universities strive and are also requested to contribute to this knowledge both locally and internationally. Traditional studies on the geography of knowledge flows have identified a localisation effect; however, these studies do not use the country as the unit of observation and hence do not explore national patterns. In this paper, we hypothesise that the localisation of university knowledge flows is directly related to share of firm expenditure on research and development. To test this hypothesis, we use references to universities in patent documents as indicators based on a data set of around 20,000 university references, for 37 countries in the period 1990–2007, resulting in panels of around 300–500 observations. We build indicators for the university knowledge flows both inside and outside the applicant country, which we explain as a function of some proxies for national size and research structure based on econometric estimations. We draw some conclusions as to the importance of national business scientific strength for fostering increased domestic university knowledge flows.This research was initiated with the framework of ERAWATCH, a joint initiative of the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and the Joint Research Centre-Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission (EC). Neither the EC nor anyone acting on behalf of the EC is responsible for the use that might be made of the information. I am grateful to Rene van Bavel and Xabier Goenaga for their support and to Laura de Dominicis for exchange of ideas. I am also grateful to the international consortium that produced the database, including Henry Etzkowitz, Marina Ranga and members of Incentim and CWTS, led, respectively, by Bart Van Looy and Robert J.W. Tijssen. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the Triple Helix VIII International Conference on University, Industry and Government Linkages and the IPTS Workshop "The Output of R&D activities: Harnessing the Power of Patents Data-II'', and I acknowledge helpful comments from the audiences. My colleagues at INGENIO also provided useful comments on a seminar presentation. I also gratefully acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish National Research Council to the project "Access to the public knowledge base'' (ref. 201010I004).Azagra Caro, JM. (2012). Access to universities public knowledge: Who s more nationalist?. Scientometrics. 91(3):671-679. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0629-5671679913Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C. 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Accounting for sources of FDI technology spillovers: evidence from China

Using a set of panel data of 11,324 firms in China from 1996 to 1999, the paper finds that positive technology spillovers from FIEs to domestic firms occur through tangible assets rather than intangible assets, through domestically consumed products rather than exported products, through ‘traditional’ products rather than new products, and through FIEs employing unskilled workers rather than FIEs employing skilled workers. FIEs are found to generate negative spillovers through exports and through employment of skilled workers. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 147–159. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400245

Productivity spillovers from R & D, exports and FDI in China's manufacturing sector

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