University-industry R&D cooperation in Brazil: a sectoral approach

The Journal of Technology Transfer. 2018. Vol. 43. No. 2. P. 285–315.

de Moraes Silva D., Furtado A. T., Vonortas N.

This paper assesses determinants of university-industry R&D cooperation at the sectoral level. Our goal was to discuss the relevance of traditional hypotheses on university-industry linkages to developing countries in light of evidence from Brazil’s Innovation Survey to provide empirical support on the basis of two groups of independent variables: internal characteristics of firms (size, intramural R&D, extramural R&D, product innovativeness, process innovativeness), and external characteristics of markets and policies (economic risk, innovation cost, government funding). We find that for sectors other than the most cooperation-intensive outliers, the main determinants of university-industry collaboration are size, extramural R&D, and product innovativeness. Extramural R&D appears as the dominant determinant and seems to occur at the expense of intramural R&D, suggesting a substitution effect. When the outliers are included in the mix, the main predictors are size, intramural R&D and government funding, providing support to the absorptive capacity argument. 

Keywords: developing countries, Brazil, R&D cooperation, innovation surveys, Sectoral approach, University-industry linkages

Publication based on the results of: Foresight tools for the study of digital transformation processes in the economy and the society (2018)