Polarization of the Swedish University Sector Structural Characteristics and Positioning

Universities have increasingly been facing a focus on competition for research resources, not the least for external funding. This paper studies structural characteristics of the Swedish university sector and these characteristics relation to the propensity of universities to attract external research funding. The findings show a clear polarization of the sector into ‘Larger research and teaching intensive’ universities, accessing the lion’s share of external research funding, and ‘Smaller education dependent’ higher education institutions. Following from this, the paper discusses specialization and division of labor among universities, in relation to the ability to gain critical mass and excellence in research.

Research network position and innovative performance: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry

This paper explores how and why collaboration with different types of partners and the position within a research network can affect firms' innovative performance in terms of product innovations. A detailed empirical analysis is carried out in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. This industry is characterized by a rapidly developing, complex, and dispersed knowledge base, where one would expect positive benefits from collaboration and the position within a network for innovative output. The paper uses a unique dataset in pharmaceutical cancer research based on scientific co-publications and new drug approvals. We apply social network analysis and count data regressions. We observe that collaboration with a diverse set of partners from academia and the network position in terms of eigenvector centrality is positively related to product innovation. However, we do not find a general positive association between collaboration, particularly with biotechnology companies, and product innovation or between central network positions and product innovation. Therefore, these results require a re-assessment of the role of scientific collaboration and biotechnology companies in the development of the pharmaceutical industry

Knowledge-intensive innovative entrepreneurship integrating Schumpeter, evolutionary economics, and innovation systems

This article proposes a novel conceptualization of knowledge-intensive innovative entrepreneurship, which can capture the main characteristics of a vital phenomenon in the modern economy. Our conceptualization is based upon the integration of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, evolutionary economics, and innovation systems approach. It consists of a theoretical definition and a stylized process model. According to this view, knowledge-intensive innovative entrepreneurs are involved in the creation, diffusion, and use of knowledge; introduce new products and technologies; draw resources and ideas from their innovation system; and introduce change and dynamism into the economy. In the article, we also offer an empirical definition of knowledge-intensive innovative entrepreneurship, which we then use to identify its key characteristics and relevance. We conclude with recommendations for a future research agenda

Academic Patenting in Europe: New Evidence from the KEINS Database.

The paper provides summary statistics from the KEINS database on academic patenting in France, Italy, and Sweden. It shows that academic scientists in those countries have signed many more patents than previously estimated. This re‐evaluation of academic patenting comes by considering all patents signed by academic scientists active in 2004, both those assigned to universities and the many more held by business companies, governmental organizations, and public laboratories. Specific institutional features of the university and research systems in the three countries contribute to explain these ownership patterns, which are remarkably different from those observed in the US. In the light of these new data, European universities’ contribution to domestic patenting appears not to be much less intense than that of their US counterparts.

On the Relationship between the Evolution of Technological Firms and Their Knowledge Development Regimes

Abstract Differences in knowledge regimes and growth dynamics amongst four ideal types of knowledge based firms are analyzed. Two aspects of technological knowledge, technological opportunity and appropriability are traditionally seen as vital to understand the incentives for research and development activities in firms. However, they do not fully define the technology regimes, when one asks how the knowledge based firm competes. Therefore, the dynamic nature of firm capabilities and knowledge development in terms of expansion and in terms of deepening are also discussed. These two additional aspects of knowledge implies that even if all firms in an industry can be considered to be knowledge intensive these firms do also differ. Using cases of entrepreneurial start-up firms in Sweden, we illustrate whether our conceptual ideas of knowledge development help us understand the diversity and contradictions of firm evolution. Our finding is that firm evolution and capability development is dependent upon both the potential for expanding knowledge, such as by innovations, and by deepening the understanding within established knowledge, such as by learning. This implies that the shaping of a science based industry must be seen in relation both to the value of current knowledge and capabilities together with the sometimes only limited and temporarily advantages of radical innovations

The grey zones of technological innovation: negative unintended consequences as a counterbalance to novelty

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The purpose of this article is to better understand the challenges of avoiding the dark side of technological innovation. Specifically, we analyse 10 public investigations started as a reaction to a major crisis in regenerative medicine at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, associated with the clinician-scientist Paolo Macchiarini. We interpret the reaction as an attempt to restore the balance between the stimulation and regulation of technological innovation processes by clarifying ambiguities in the regulation at the interface between research and practice. We conceptualise these ambiguities as grey zones–situations when it is unclear if the benefits of experimentation outweigh its risks–and propose that grey zones are continually created and resolved as actors in innovation governance systems counterbalance the generation of novelty and the risk of negative unintended consequences.This research was financed by the Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professor’s Programme, awarded to Professor McKelvey, on “Knowledge-intensive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Transforming society through knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship”, VR DNR 2017-03360.This research was also financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Riksbankensjubileumsfond) through the project “How Engineering Science Can Impact Industry in a Global World”, lead by Professor M. McKelvey (FSK15 1080 1). This project is part of a large research program “The Long Term Provision of Knowledge” financed jointly by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, Formas, Forte and the Swedish Research Council.Peer Reviewe