Industry research production and linkages with academia: evidence from UK science parks

Paper in proceeding, 2013

The aim of this study is to identify the research areas, geographic regions, university- industry (U-I) collaborations, quality, and impact of the research associated with the research-intensive organisations based in the UK science parks. An analysis of scholarly publications (1975-2010) revealed three main research domains: food-biotechnology and bio-pharmacology; physics and material engineering; and agro-biotechnology. These three types of research were mainly produced in East England, South East England, and Scotland, respectively. Only a quarter of the research results from inter-institutional cooperation. The high involvement of private sector in the physics and material engineering domain involves the highest rate of U-I collaboration but the lowest citation impact. The research quality, defined in terms of the journals where research is published, is significantly higher than the average across research areas, although its impact is not significantly higher than the national average. In terms of inter-sector differences, the higher the involvement of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Research Institutions (RIs) the greater the impact of the publications produced. The low level of impact of private research suggests that citations may not be the best indicator to assess academic researchers with close and operational linkages with industry.