The Scientific Productivity of Academic Inventors: New Evidence From Italian Data (original) (raw)
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2014
The recent increase in patenting by European and American university researchers has raised concerns among observers that increased patenting may be associated with less open publication of research results. This leads us to examine if the propensity to academic patenting would negatively affect publication of scientific research results and, therefore, result in less diffusion of knowledge resources; or, conversely, if it could increase the quantity and quality of scientific publications and therefore improve academic performances. We propose a quantitative approach through which we aim to test whether academic researchers who both publish and patent are less productive than their peers who concentrate exclusively on scholarly publication, in order to communicate their research results. More specifically, by using the statistical model of comparison between sample means, we analyse if the average number of publications by academic inventors is lower than the average of non-academic...
Assessing the patenting activity in the Italian universities: the case of the biotechnology research
Research productivity measured using patent-based indexes is a useful measure of the effectiveness of scientists’ efforts to produce useful knowledge. In this paper, a theoretical framework and a method based on patent analysis are proposed to understand determinants of research productivity. The framework assumes that research productivity is dependent on the knowledge search behaviour pursued by scientists. Three dimensions of search are taken in account: search type, search focus and search dynamics. Using data relative to 873 biotechnology patents granted from 1960 to 2007 to 255 academic scholars that are affiliated to 36 Italian universities, this paper investigates if university research productivity is positively affected by particular knowledge search behaviours pursued by its academic staff. Indexes to qualify knowledge search are built and measured. Two different profiles of knowledge search behaviours were clearly identified, one associated to high research productivity and the other to low research productivity.
The Unequal Benefits of Academic Patenting for Science and Engineering Research
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 2009
The increase of university patents has raised issues of potential conflicts of interest in Faculty activities. Nonetheless, recent empirical evidence has indicated that very productive scientists contribute disproportionally to academic patenting and that inventing is likely to encourage an increase in scientific productivity. This article adds to this evidence by showing that such beneficial effects are not likely to be earned equally by every scientist. The analysis was run in a large sample of Italian scientists contributing to materials sciences in either chemistry or engineering of materials, and makes use of several econometric techniques that are suitable for treating unobserved heterogeneity, excess zeros, and incidental truncation. Results indicate that benefits are higher when the feedback from applied research is richer, and when regimes of secrecy are less harsh, which is more likely to be the case with engineering, as opposed to hard science research. If confirmed by further evidence, the findings suggest that academic policies in matters of intellectual property rights should be refined and tailored to field specificities.
Research Policy, 2007
We run an Event History Analysis on a sample of Italian researchers in the field of Materials Science, aiming at understanding how the characteristics of the research trajectories followed by scientists in academia affect their opportunities to do development of industrial applications. Results of our estimates suggest that all measures of academic performances have a dual effect, although different in magnitude. Scientists that are moving along applied research trajectories find it easier to produce industrial applications than their colleagues engaged in the quest for very fundamental understanding. We interpret our results by suggesting that, for the former, more academic research results in more exploitable results, hence in more chances to patent; for the latter, more academic research makes it just more unlikely that they will find the time to produce industrial applications. Similar results apply for the low versus high research impact.
FROM PUBLISHING TO PATENTING: HOW TO BECOME AN ACADEMIC INVENTOR
The paper contributes to ongoing debate on the relationship between publishing and patenting in university. By applying event history analysis to patent and publication data for a sample of Italian academic scientists, we show that more productive scientists are more likely to become academic inventors, to no detriment of their orientation towards basic research. Research co-operation with industry is a useful predictor of patenting, when IPRs are owned by business companies.
Inventive Productivity and Patent Quality: Evidence from Italian Inventors
2008
By considering a regional sample of Italian inventors, this paper explores the factors behind the different individual performances in terms of number and quality of patents. Our reference population is composed of 570 inventors residing in the Marche region who, over the period 1991-2005, have contributed to 743 patent applications filed at the European Patent Office. Looking at the number of patents per inventor, a Lotka's distribution emerges suggesting that also for geographical areas inventive activities are highly concentrated in a few key inventors. To examine whether both the inventive productivity and quality are affected by individual and firm characteristics, we use the outcomes of a survey on 106 inventors. We find that the patent productivity is not influenced by individual characteristics but it is higher for the inventors working in teams and employed in large firms with greater patent portfolios. With respect to patent value we employ a composite index in which forward citations, claims and patent families are taken into account. Measured in this way, patent quality is significantly associated, along with the presence of an inventive team, with a set of individual features such as the inventors' experience and level of education. This suggests that inventions coming from individuals working in small firms or independently can be as valuable as those generated by inventors occupied in larger companies.
Networks of inventors and the role of academia: an exploration of Italian patent data
Research Policy, 2004
This paper proposes a quantitative analysis of social distance between Open Science and Proprietary Technology. A few general properties of social networks within both realms are discussed, as they emerge from the new economics of science and recent applied work on "small worlds". A new data-set on patent inventors is explored, in order to show that social networks within Proprietary Technology are much more fragmented than Open Science ones, except for science-based technologies. Two propositions are then put forward on the "open" behaviour expected from academic inventors, namely university scientists getting involved in Proprietary Technology networks by signing patents. Both propositions are confirmed by data, which show academic inventors to be more central and better connected than non-academic ones. The database and methodology produced for this paper are suggested to be relevant for the more general debate on the role of geographical and cognitive distance in university-industry technology transfer.
THE IMPACT OF ACADEMIC PATENTING ON THE RATE, QUALITY AND DIRECTION OF (PUBLIC) RESEARCH OUTPUT
The Journal of Industrial Economics, 2009
We examine the influence of faculty patenting on the rate, quality, and content of public research outputs in a panel dataset spanning the careers of 3,862 academic life scientists. Using inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTW) to account for the dynamics of self-selection into patenting, we find that patenting has a positive effect on the rate of publication of journal articles and a weak positive effect on the quality of these publications. Using several measures of the "patentability" of the content of research papers, we also find that patenters may be shifting their research focus to questions of commercial interest. We conclude that the oftenvoiced concern that patenting in academe has a nefarious effect on public research output is, at least in its simplest form, misplaced.