Faculty support for the objectives of university-industry relations versus degree of R&D cooperation:: The importance of regional absorptive capacity

The growing importance of regions in the analysis of innovation and the pressure on European universities to interact with their environment justify this article. It argues that faculty support for the objectives of university-industry relations (UIR) does not vary across disciplines and does not respond to university encouragement in a region with low absorptive capacity. These results are in contrast with those obtained in studies of technology leading countries like the USA. Furthermore, incentives for UIR may generate unpredicted dynamics while instruments to cooperate are not significant. Finally, support for the objectives of UIR should not be confused with the degree of R&D cooperation. The former is sensitive to university age while the latter is sensitive to gender, discipline, commitment to R&D and university encouragement. Empirical evidence is obtained from a sample of faculty from the Valencian Community (Spain) and analysed through a set of models for discrete choice. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.