University-industry cooperation in Russia: Empirical evidence from both sides

Collaboration and cooperation between companies, research organizations, and universities are among the key factors that condition an innovative economic growth. At the same time, enterprises, institutes, and universities differ fundamentally in their goals, values, and priorities, as well as the motives driving them to cooperate.

The paper is focused on the cooperation of Russian companies with research organizations and universities in implementing R&D projects during technological innovation. Most studies in this field evaluate effects of interaction either from the business or science perspective. Contrastingly, the key feature of our study is the bilateral approach to the cooperation analysis, both from companies’ and universities’ and research institutes’ viewpoint.

Taking into account behavioral changes, authors carry out a micro­level analysis based on empirical data from an executive survey of over 600 Russian industrial firms (2011—2012) and about 350 research organizations and universities (2012). The authors emphasize the key factors of firms’ demand for outsourcing R&D, reveal the main barriers to the development of university-industry cooperation and their particularities for different cooperation actors.

Results of our analysis show that there is a positive relationship between the size of a company and R&D outsourcing. As for the factor of age, the highest cooperation activity of Russian firms is observed among enterprises founded over 20 years ago.

As far as concerns cooperation activity of universities and research organizations, large ones are significantly more likely to cooperate with business in R&D projects. A common prerequisite for research organizations' R&D cooperation with business is sufficient academic ranking.

Business and science evaluate differently various obstacles to effective cooperation. For firms, the main problems are the inflated costs of national R&Ds, insufficient research organizations’ orientation to company needs, and low quality of developments. As for representatives of universities and research organizations, they mention as barriers primarily the lack of companies' receptivity to innovation and inadequate information about promising developments.

Businesses are more optimistic about cooperation with science if they already have some relevant experience with interaction. In the case of research organizations we observe a different pattern. Most interaction problems seem more significant to organizations conducting R&D in business interests.

JEL classification: D22, I2, L2, O31, O32.

Keywords: science, technology, and innovation; university-industry cooperation; firm behavior.