Do all roads lead to industry-university collaboration? Firm collaboration with specific types of organisations in peripheral, intermediate and metropolitan regions

This paper studies how interaction with specific types of organisations can facilitate industry-university collaboration as part of firms’ innovative activities, in different types of regions in Denmark. By combining data from the Danish Innovation Survey and Danish register data at different points in time, I study the link between firms’ interaction with research and technology organisations (RTOs) or knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), firms’ location in peripheral, intermediate or metropolitan regions, and firms’ collaboration with national universities. I argue that interaction with RTOs or KIBS will increase firms’ likelihood of industry-national university collaboration because this experience of collaboration allows businesses to overcome differences in norms and incentive systems with universities. However, the role that these organisations play differs depending on firms’ regional location. The results suggest that for firms in peripheral regions interaction with RTOs or KIBS increases the likelihood of industry-national university collaboration to a greater extent than for firms in metropolitan regions. Secondly, for firms in intermediate regions interaction with RTOs or KIBS does not seem to increase the likelihood of industry-national university collaboration to a greater extent than for firms in metropolitan regions. Finally, there is limited evidence suggesting that interaction with RTOs increases firms’ likelihood of industry-national university collaboration to a greater extent than interaction with KIBS, for all types of regions. The results have to be interpreted with caution because they are sensitive to the analysis period, yet they suggest that interaction with RTOs and KIBS can facilitate industry-university collaboration differently, depending on firms’ location.