Participation and commitment in third-party research funding: evidence from Italian Universities

Assessing Academics’ Third Mission Engagement by Individual and Organisational Predictors

In recent years, the coming of the entrepreneurial university has brought about a third role in academia, which involves greater visible exchange of academics with society and industry. In this paper, the authors investigate to what extent individual and organisational factors influence the propensity of academics to engage in different types of Third Mission (TM) activities. This study is based on a large-scale survey of academics in Iceland regarding engagement in socio-economic activities. The results indicate that “soft” activities such as community activities and external teaching and training can be better predicted by individual factors, while hard activities such as applied contract research and commercialisation can be better predicted by organisational factors. Overall, academics are most likely to participate in community-related activities. Hereby, academics from the STEM and health disciplines, with work experience outside of academia and who are open to new experiences are more likely to be engaged in applied contract research and commercialisation. Academics belonging to disciplines other than STEM and health sciences and those that on an average publish more peer-reviewed articles are more likely to disseminate their knowledge to a wider audience outside of academia through public science communication. Gender, rank, and teaching do not affect TM participation, but openness, performance, or discipline do.

Cooperation University–Industry: A Systematic Literature Review

Knowledge and its transference are increasingly viewed as key factors of companies’ competitiveness. In this sense, our research aims to analyze how the knowledge transfer takes place between the higher education sector and the companies. Although there has been an increase in research related to University–Industry (U–I) cooperation, the existing literature is still relatively fragmented and lacks a comprehensive view. In this way, this study aims to fill this gap by reducing the existing gap in the literature. Thus, this study aims at identifying the different trends and themes prevailing in the literature on U–I cooperation. Through a systematic literature review, using a bibliometric analysis, we identify four themes: (1) Triple Helix, (2) Knowledge Transfer, (3) Determinants of Cooperation and (4) Strategic Alliances. This research makes several important contributions: this review helps highlight not only what the previous literature has analyzed about cooperation between U–I but also prepares the ground for the second wave of research on this topic, synthesizing the main gaps in knowledge and the emerging trends in studies. Another contribution is the challenge of several prevailing theoretical/conceptual assumptions in cooperation between U–I and offering new theoretical/conceptual perspectives that may shape future research on this topic. Last but not the least, this paper defines a roadmap for a future research agenda by proposing multiple directions that can open new avenues for future research and the construction of relevant and appropriate theories for measuring the contributions of cooperation between U–I.

Multiple-party funding: tensions and related consequences for academic research in Europe

European universities are experiencing increasing financial pressures. Given that governmental budgets are cut, they have to additionally rely on further sources of funding. Multi-party funding, however, is not easily managed and poses serious challenges on academic research. This study explores the question “What tensions result from multiple-party funding, what are possible consequences of the different funding strategies and—transferring the findings to the university context—how can universities establish and manage multiple-party funded research?” We conducted a qualitative single case study in a non-university research center (NRC). NRC has gone through the process of increasing financial pressure and now relies on multiple sources of financing that have to be managed concurrently. Our results discuss opportunities and threats and reveal core tensions related to multiple-party funding activities. Adopting a paradox lens allows us to transfer the insights from this case to the university context. We systematically discuss consequences for universities and academic research and suggest approaches of actively managing tensions via strategies of accepting, differentiating and integrating. We thereby contribute to the discussion how to establish and manage third-party funded research for European universities.