Collaboration and contracting out versus funding and support – Impact on the propensity to patent of Canadian biotechnology firms 1999-2005

Using the four Biotechnology Uses and Development surveys of Statistics Canada, we analyse the relative importance of funding and support as well as collaboration and contracting, R&D and IP strategies on the propensity to patent of Canadian biotechnology firms. Our model accounts for the potential endogeneity due to the simultaneity of some of these strategies. Controlling for various firm characteristics, the stage of development of the firm and the sources of its revenues, we find that collaboration with other firms does matter for patenting, as well as R&D, even when controlling for potential endogeneity. IP strategies and contracting out activities also increase the propensity of a firm to patent. And so does angel and venture capital funding.Innovation, Patents, Collaboration, Contracts, R&D, Biotechnology,

Becoming and Remaining an Independent Union: A Comparative Case Study of Two University Faculty Unions

Although workplace unions have many options when it comes to affiliating with a central labour body, some unions decide to remain independent or to disaffiliate after an experience of affiliation. To our knowledge, the literature has not widely examined the reasons behind the decision of some unions to remain independent. Based on a comparative case study of two university faculty unions in Quebec, this article aims to partly fill this gap in analysis. The results show that the particularities of the work of professors and the types of expertise needed to perform their duties influence their choice for union independence

The Next Generation of Scientists in Africa

Young scientists are a powerful resource for change and sustainable development, as they drive innovation and knowledge creation. However, comparable findings on young scientists in various countries, especially in Africa and developing regions, are generally sparse. Therefore, empirical knowledge on the state of early-career scientists is critical in order to address current challenges faced by those scientists in Africa. This book reports on the main findings of a three-and-a-half-year international project in order to assist its readers in better understanding the African research system in general, and more specifically its young scientists. The first part of the book provides background on the state of science in Africa, and bibliometric findings concerning Africa�s scientific production and networks, for the period 2005 to 2015. The second part of the book combines the findings of a large-scale, quantitative survey and more than 200 qualitative interviews to provide a detailed profile of young scientists and the barriers they face in terms of five aspects of their careers: research output; funding; mobility; collaboration; and mentoring. In each case, field and gender differences are also taken into account. The last part of the book comprises conclusions and recommendations to relevant policy- and decision-makers on desirable changes to current research systems in Africa

Archeota, Fall 2015

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/saasc_archeota/1001/thumbnail.jp

Validation of innovation indicators from companies’ websites

[EN] In this exploratory study, we use a web mining technique to source data in order to create innovation indicators of Canadian nanotechnology and advanced materials firms. 79 websites were extracted and analysed based on keywords related to the concepts of R&D and intellectual property. To understand what our web mining indicators actually measure, we compare them with those from a classic questionnaire-based survey. Formative indices from the surveys variables were built to better represent all the possibilities resulting from the web mining indicators. A MTMM matrix lead us to conclude that the formative indices are a good representation of the web mining indicators. As a consequence, the data extracted via our web mining technique can be used as proxies for the relative importance of R&D and the importance of IP, which would have previously only been measured using conventional methods such as government administrative data or questionnaire-based surveys.Heroux-Vaillancourt, M.; Beaudry, C. (2018). Validation of innovation indicators from companies’ websites. En 2nd International Conference on Advanced Reserach Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2018). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 133-140. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2018.2018.8333OCS13314

Impact of collaboration and funding on the propensity to patent of Canadian biotechnology firms 1999-2005

Using the four biotechnology uses and development surveys of Statistics Canada, we analyse the importance of collaboration, funding and support, as well as contracting, R&D and IP strategies on the propensity to patent of Canadian biotechnology firms. Our model accounts for the potential endogeneity due to the simultaneity of some of these strategies. Controlling for various firm characteristics, the stage of development of the firm and the sources of its revenues, we find that collaboration with other firms does matter for patenting, as well as R&D, even when controlling for potential endogeneity. IP strategies and contracting out activities also increase the propensity of a firm to patent, and so does angel and venture capital funding

Text mining methods for innovation studies: limits and future perspectives

[EN] This study offers alternative and promising approaches to word count methods, largely used to develop innovation indicators from unstructured text. We propose a method based on Information Retrieval (IR) and word-embedding models to tackle the semantic ellipsis, one of the main issues of word count methods. We test our IR model by investigating the concept of collaboration and comparing our approach with a baseline corresponding to the keyword search. To ensure the best performances, we use several ways to represent queries and documents in a vector space and three pre-trained word-embedding models. The results prove that our approach can alleviate the semantic ellipsis problem. Indeed, the IR model developed outperforms the classical keyword search in terms of F1-score and Recall. Moreover, we create a combined method that achieves the highest F1-score. These preliminary results can facilitate the creation of reliable innovation indicators from unstructured textual data substituting or complementing survey-based questionnaires.Cruciata, P.; Pulizzotto, D.; Beaudry, C. (2022). Text mining methods for innovation studies: limits and future perspectives. En 4th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 147-154. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2022.2022.1507614715

Is Canadian intellectual property leaving Canada? A study of nanotechnology patenting

In this study we explore the patent ownership for the innovations created by Canadian nanotechnology inventors. We find that although there is a great innovative potential and inventive productivity among Canadian researchers, a lot of the intellectual property actually leaves the country: Around 50% of the nanotechnology patents invented by Canadian inventors are owned by foreign assignees. We also note the predominance of private companies among the patent owners. Almost one-third of all the Canadian-invented nanotechnology patents is assigned to a single American firm, Xerox Corporation. Furthermore, we explore the role of Canadian nanotechnology star inventors. The results show that the fruits of their great inventive productivity are collected outside Canada