Cooperating with different types of non-academic organisations: implications for university-industry collaboration in peripheral and metropolitan regions

This paper explores how non-academic partnerships (collaborative relationships with non-academic organisations such as other firms or technological institutes) can facilitate university-industry collaboration, in different regions. In particular, I study whether businesses in peripheral regions are more likely to collaborate with universities if they cooperate with Danish non-academic partners; and whether businesses in metropolitan regions are more likely to collaborate with universities if they cooperate with foreign non-academic partners. I also study whether cooperation with Danish non-academic partners is more conducive to collaboration with Danish universities in peripheral regions; and whether cooperation with foreign non-academic partners is more conducive to collaboration with foreign universities in metropolitan regions. The insights from this paper might help understanding how does collaboration with different organisations stimulate university-industry collaboration, in different types of region. I combine data from the Danish Integrated Labour Market database, and the Danish Innovation Survey. This dataset is used to run a series of logistic regressions on the likelihood that firms collaborate with: universities in general, Danish universities, and foreign universities. For firms in peripheral regions, collaborating with Danish non-academic partners is more conducive to university-industry collaboration in general, than for firms in metropolitan regions. Secondly, cooperation with foreign and Danish non-academic partners is positively associated to collaboration with foreign universities, independently of firms’ regional location. Finally, cooperation with Danish non-academic partners increases the likelihood that firms collaborate with Danish universities, independently of businesses’ regional location. The findings suggest that there are different paths to university-industry collaboration, and to different types of universities. Policies aimed at promoting universities’ third mission could take into account how firms’ choice of non-academic collaborations influences their choice of university partner.