Types of university-industry interaction: a new approach to bridge the gap between universities and industries

Abstract

University - industry (U - I) interaction promotes a debate that is hinged on the National System of Innovation dynamics. Thus, by taking into account the different patterns of U - I interactions in developed and developing countries, the literature has sought to categorize them, but hasn’t paid attenti on to the interactions that may contribute to leverage the different knowled ge gaps between universities and industries. So, this study aims to assess the types of interaction that narrow or bridge those knowledge gaps. To achieve that, a new typology is proposed, which seeks to contemplate several common elements often dealt with in the literature in a piecemeal fashion. These elements are viewed as a continuum, in which it is possible to perceive the interactions targeted at practical and short - term application on the one hand, and interactions oriented towards long - term joint re search on the other, leading to an increasing level of knowledge needed for innovation. In the new typology model proposed the interactions are classified into training - oriented, diffusion - oriented, funding - oriented, development - oriented, and research - orie nted , in which the latter two differ from the others, and this difference lies in the quality of interaction and in the possibility of competitive upgrade of the industries engaged in these interactions. The Brazilian 2010 Census data available from the CNPq Research Group Directory was used to test the model, which refers to 6,792 U - I interactions. In this context, analyzing the five types proposed, the most frequent among all interactions were the development - oriented (39%), diffusion - oriented (23%), an d research - oriented (16%). It is likely that U - I interactions have improved in terms of quality in an attempt to attain a joint higher technological development; however, this finding does not neglect the existence of “points of interaction” in Brazil.