Auteurs : Andreas Schibany - Helmut Gassler - Christian Rammer
Publicatiedatum : december 2002

In an increasingly knowledge-based economy the generation and use of scientific knowledge in the innovation efforts of enterprises are seen as one important dimension that determines the performance of a National Innovation System. Hence, science and technology policy has in recent years devoted much attention to fostering Industry-Science Relations (ISRs), and in several countries policy initiatives in this realm have been launched. The intensity and quality of knowledge transfer between the science and industry sector thus play an increasing role in determining the returns on investment in research, in terms of competitiveness, growth and job creation.

Against this background, the study provides conceptual and empirical information on comparable programmes in a set of selected European countries. Regarding the channel of interaction between science and industry the report focuses on human capital mobility programmes and the public support of academic spin-offs. Despite a general trend towards relaxing regulatory constraints, the low rate of mobility of researchers between public and private sectors remains in many countries a major bottleneck of knowledge transfer. The contribution of spin-offs from publicly funded research to innovation is significant in specific sectors.

However, there is a huge variety of good practice examples when screening most of the existing programmes. In order to learn from these good practices, one has to consider that good practice is always specific to the market and institutional environment, and addresses market failure and barriers stemming from this environment. Policy makers have thus carefully to identify these market failures and barriers, and then select a proper mechanism to tackle them. As regulations are only one side of the equation interaction depends very much on incentives. Policy has to take this into account when developing subsidy measures. Promotion programmes for specific transfer channels like mobility or research spin-offs should be regarded as one step within an initiative to make intersectoral knowledge flows more flexible and effective.