How Engineering Sciences Can Impact Industry in a Global World: A Longitudinal Study of Chalmers’ Interactions with Companies
This project will critically analyze how engineering sciences can impact Swedish industry, to facilitate entrepreneurship and innovation in a globalized world. Chalmers is taken as an extreme case, within Sweden, as a university which is both an international scientific leader and company partner. Our research questions address how and why university-industry collaboration in networks affect the development of new scientific and industrial knowledge, in relation both to scientific excellence and industrial competitiveness. Our research strategy is to focus on a detailed, longitudinal study of networks developing between firm partners and Chalmers University of Technology, from 2000 to 2015. The study provides an overview of companies interaction with Chalmers, using extensive databases as well as case studies. It focuses on three industrial sectors, namely nanotechnology for high tech, control engineering (signals and systems) medium tech and sports for low tech. Cross-industry studies will be conducted of Chalmers stimulation of innovation and entrepreneurship. Theory predicts firms would act differently in collaboration with universities, due to the differing capabilities. Quantitative comparisons of all researchers in Sweden within the corresponding fields/disciplines will constitute a control. This provides opportunities for reflections upon how universities and firms together determine the future of the Swedish knowledge economy.
Final report
The purpose of this project “How Engineering Sciences Can Impact Industry in a Global World” has been to critically analyze how engineering sciences impact Swedish society, by examining three industrial sectors and patterns of interactions between university and industry. Engineering sciences as developed in interaction between university and industry are one relevant type of knowledge creation and dissemination that will contribute to solving contemporary problems, while also providing intellectual capabilities for future knowledge creation. Thus, studying the specificities in the Research Programme “Long-Term Provision of Societal Knowledge” within the engineering sciences matters for society, because new technological knowledge solves new societal problems, and are crucial for stimulating later knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and business innovations.
Maureen McKelvey, Professor, has created and led this research project (cf. Principal Investigator, PI). McKelvey’s execution of this project in the research team has included both conceptual work as well as empirical studies. Her team consisted of researchers directly funded through the project as well as a number of PhD students and researchers financed through other projects, but working on related topics. The research team has focused upon university-industry interactions in engineering sciences and technological development, starting from the university, in order to discussion both the commercialization of academic research through entrepreneurship as well as academic engagement, defined as knowledge-based relationships. A mixed methods approach has been used. The qualitative research is based upon semi-structured interviews and written material to discuss perceived rationale, benefits, capabilities, and long-term development. The quantitative data includes academic patents, papers and metrics for scientific outcomes as well as analysis of the dynamics which stimulate new technology and knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms. Our three contributions below provide evidence and insights into how the knowledge economy is changing in Sweden.
Three particularly important contributions from McKelvey’s project:
1) Developed conceptualizations of how universities are changing their interactions with society, specifically in engineering. Academic engagement defined as knowledge networks requires that both the partners of university and industry respectively develop capabilities for interacting around advanced knowledge creation. In doing so, they also need organizational structures such as centers and research programs. These organizational structures help to define the rules of the game, and mitigate the divergent goals and incentives to engage in knowledge creation in industry and universities. Scientists interacting in university-industry interactions thus face what is called differing institutional logics. We propose that one way to solve these conflicts is to develop hybrid spaces, with specific types of work practices, in order to balance these minority and majority logics. Moreover, we should how specific configurations for interaction can differ for types of engineering areas, but that the joint production of knowledge for most technologies appear to benefit from medium levels of cognitive distance between partners including university, industry and public policy actors.
2) Evaluated the structural conditions of policy initiatives to stimulate the performance of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial (KIE) firms through education. We examined a variety of entrepreneurship education in Sweden, in terms of differing mixes of theoretical and empirical educational practices. While we do not evaluate educational outcomes, we do find that entrepreneurial education can be constituted through a variety of configurations, which likely affect later outcomes in starting KIE firms, by affecting students’ ability to identify innovative opportunities and their willingness to tackle risk. Moreover, we find that in technological areas characterized by repeated collaborative engineering research, we find that the macro-level path dependence of interaction can be explained by individual-based knowledge networks with persons with PhD degrees at both universities and firms, who bridge the organizations. This suggests the importance of policy initiatives to promote PhD education and mobility.
3) Examined and explained different patterns of academic engagement and university-industry interactions involving firms in high-tech, medium-tech and low-tech sectors. We find that nanotechnology tends to be driven by the commercialization of research results by academic scientists, whereas engineering for sports technology (specifically equestrian sports) tends to be driven by student projects with a wide variety of stakeholders. The field of control, signals and systems in Sweden has a broad range of deep interactions between university and industry, involving researchers as well as students, and with companies with deep technical knowledge.
New research questions that have been generated through this project have led to a series of new papers and projects for our team. One further developed research question focuses upon the technological and regional characteristics which will impact the specificities of knowledge creation and dissemination in specific fields of engineering and technological knowledge. Another relevant new question links academic engagement explicitly with knowledge-intensive ecosystems, which was the basis of the Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professor Program awarded to McKelvey for her research on Knowledge-intensive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems.
Our research team has been active in diffusing our research results, both to a specialized academic audience – as documented below under publications – as well as to society more broadly. More than 40 conference papers have been presented by the team. These manuscripts were later revised after comments and submitted to journals and books for well-known academic book publishers. McKelvey organized a larger conference entitled ”University new role in the knowledge economy, with 36 participants, from 8 countries. Continuing work from this conference lead to a special issue in the scientific journal Innovation Organization and Management, with the co-editors Guido Buenstorf (University of Kassel and University of Gothenburg) and Anders Bröström (KTH). Moreover, international collaboration with especially the international advisory committee has also led to a number of co-authored articles listed below. For societal impact, Maureen McKelvey and Olof Zaring have presented at the Swedish Parliament (RIFO) and Ministry of Education, as well as targeted meetings with relevant stakeholders. McKelvey was also invited and held various keynote speech, including one about “Innovation Cascades in Biotechnology” at EMBO/EMBL symposium as well as about innovation governance of engineering knowledge at the 2018 Triple Helix conference. Internationalization has been a strong theme in our work, involving much interaction, dedicated visits, guest researchers and keynote speeches in our field throughout this project.
Open access has been addressed through the Swedish Bibsam agreement; through paying specialized open access fees for articles; through purchase and distribution of copies of books; and through the ongoing development of available copies on website or else electronic archives.
Maureen McKelvey, Professor, has created and led this research project (cf. Principal Investigator, PI). McKelvey’s execution of this project in the research team has included both conceptual work as well as empirical studies. Her team consisted of researchers directly funded through the project as well as a number of PhD students and researchers financed through other projects, but working on related topics. The research team has focused upon university-industry interactions in engineering sciences and technological development, starting from the university, in order to discussion both the commercialization of academic research through entrepreneurship as well as academic engagement, defined as knowledge-based relationships. A mixed methods approach has been used. The qualitative research is based upon semi-structured interviews and written material to discuss perceived rationale, benefits, capabilities, and long-term development. The quantitative data includes academic patents, papers and metrics for scientific outcomes as well as analysis of the dynamics which stimulate new technology and knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms. Our three contributions below provide evidence and insights into how the knowledge economy is changing in Sweden.
Three particularly important contributions from McKelvey’s project:
1) Developed conceptualizations of how universities are changing their interactions with society, specifically in engineering. Academic engagement defined as knowledge networks requires that both the partners of university and industry respectively develop capabilities for interacting around advanced knowledge creation. In doing so, they also need organizational structures such as centers and research programs. These organizational structures help to define the rules of the game, and mitigate the divergent goals and incentives to engage in knowledge creation in industry and universities. Scientists interacting in university-industry interactions thus face what is called differing institutional logics. We propose that one way to solve these conflicts is to develop hybrid spaces, with specific types of work practices, in order to balance these minority and majority logics. Moreover, we should how specific configurations for interaction can differ for types of engineering areas, but that the joint production of knowledge for most technologies appear to benefit from medium levels of cognitive distance between partners including university, industry and public policy actors.
2) Evaluated the structural conditions of policy initiatives to stimulate the performance of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial (KIE) firms through education. We examined a variety of entrepreneurship education in Sweden, in terms of differing mixes of theoretical and empirical educational practices. While we do not evaluate educational outcomes, we do find that entrepreneurial education can be constituted through a variety of configurations, which likely affect later outcomes in starting KIE firms, by affecting students’ ability to identify innovative opportunities and their willingness to tackle risk. Moreover, we find that in technological areas characterized by repeated collaborative engineering research, we find that the macro-level path dependence of interaction can be explained by individual-based knowledge networks with persons with PhD degrees at both universities and firms, who bridge the organizations. This suggests the importance of policy initiatives to promote PhD education and mobility.
3) Examined and explained different patterns of academic engagement and university-industry interactions involving firms in high-tech, medium-tech and low-tech sectors. We find that nanotechnology tends to be driven by the commercialization of research results by academic scientists, whereas engineering for sports technology (specifically equestrian sports) tends to be driven by student projects with a wide variety of stakeholders. The field of control, signals and systems in Sweden has a broad range of deep interactions between university and industry, involving researchers as well as students, and with companies with deep technical knowledge.
New research questions that have been generated through this project have led to a series of new papers and projects for our team. One further developed research question focuses upon the technological and regional characteristics which will impact the specificities of knowledge creation and dissemination in specific fields of engineering and technological knowledge. Another relevant new question links academic engagement explicitly with knowledge-intensive ecosystems, which was the basis of the Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professor Program awarded to McKelvey for her research on Knowledge-intensive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems.
Our research team has been active in diffusing our research results, both to a specialized academic audience – as documented below under publications – as well as to society more broadly. More than 40 conference papers have been presented by the team. These manuscripts were later revised after comments and submitted to journals and books for well-known academic book publishers. McKelvey organized a larger conference entitled ”University new role in the knowledge economy, with 36 participants, from 8 countries. Continuing work from this conference lead to a special issue in the scientific journal Innovation Organization and Management, with the co-editors Guido Buenstorf (University of Kassel and University of Gothenburg) and Anders Bröström (KTH). Moreover, international collaboration with especially the international advisory committee has also led to a number of co-authored articles listed below. For societal impact, Maureen McKelvey and Olof Zaring have presented at the Swedish Parliament (RIFO) and Ministry of Education, as well as targeted meetings with relevant stakeholders. McKelvey was also invited and held various keynote speech, including one about “Innovation Cascades in Biotechnology” at EMBO/EMBL symposium as well as about innovation governance of engineering knowledge at the 2018 Triple Helix conference. Internationalization has been a strong theme in our work, involving much interaction, dedicated visits, guest researchers and keynote speeches in our field throughout this project.
Open access has been addressed through the Swedish Bibsam agreement; through paying specialized open access fees for articles; through purchase and distribution of copies of books; and through the ongoing development of available copies on website or else electronic archives.