Do co-publications with industry lead to higher levels of university technology commercialization activity?

Using the university–industry co-publications (UICP) propensity indicators developed by Tijssen (CWTS Working Paper Series, CWTS-WP-2012-009, 2009), this paper examines the impact of university–industry R&D collaboration on university technology commercialization output for leading US and Canadian universities. Our analysis suggests that UICPs do have a significant positive influence on universities’ technology commercialization outputs, after controlling for the quantity and quality of their research and for their commercialization resources. The results are robust for all three common measures of university technology commercialization: patenting (both in terms of simple patent counts and citation-weighted counts), spin-off formation, and technology licensing. To supplement the aggregate regression findings, five case studies are provided that offer further insights on the causal mechanisms involved. Implications of these findings and possible future research directions are discussed.