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Academy industry links and the third mission of the universities
Dr. Maria NedevaMIoIR, MBS. The University of Manchester
EULAKS Summer Schools, Mexico City, August 2009
Content
• Academy – industry links: an overview• The ‘third mission’ of the university• The ‘third mission’ and the reproduction of the
university
Academy-industry links: overview
• Empirical facts• Methodological issues• Analytical framework• Axiological problem(s)
Empirical facts
• There is a steady increase in the number of immediate links between academic organisations and industry globally
• There is an increase in the variety and nature of the links between academy and industry
• There is an increase in the number and variety of policies aiming to encourage academy-industry links
• Academy-industry links are seen as inherently desirable and unproblematic
• Academic interest in issues regarding academy-industry links has increased dramatically
Increase in number of linksResearch field Consultancy and contract
researchJoint research
Chemical engineering 75.4 59.0
Chemistry 58.9 46.8
Civil engineering 74.4 47.7
Computer science 42 42.6
Electrical and electronic engineering 69.8 54.7
General engineering 71.6 55.3
Mathematics 20.4 12
Mechanical, aero and manuf. engineering 81 62.9
Metallurgy and materials 82.6 61.8
Physics 37.4 35.9
All 56.3 44.6
Adapted from D'Este and Patel, 2007
Methodological issues
• Conceptual perspectives– Inter-organisational perspective (Bonaccorsi and Picaluga, 1994)
– Mode-ist perspective (Gibbons et al., 1994)
– Triple Helix model (Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 1996, 1998)
– Systemic approach (Freeman, 1987, Lundvall, 1992 and Nelson, 1993)
• From ‘attribute data’ to ‘relational data’• Between ‘organisations’ and ‘structures’
Analytical framework
• The empirical problem• The causal problem• The axiological problem
The empirical problem
• How to register and measure academy-industry links?– See these as relationships based on exchange
– Identify the types of exchange
• What is exchanged
• Is the exchange direct or mediated
• Is the exchange symmetrical
• Is the exchange ‘legitimate’
The empirical problem
• Build from the activities (functions) the organisations
• Example: universities– Exchange in the context of research– Exchange in the context of teaching
Money for servicesDirectResearch related services
Money for research specified by industry (consultancy);Money for research already part of university research
agendaExchange of ideas and covering costs of research
Direct/mediatedUser oriented research
Financial support for future research resultsDirect/Mediated
Basic research
Research
Course designCovering the costs of short courses
DirectContinuous education/Executive education
Content of research trainingPhD topic definitionSharing the costs of PhD researchSharing supervision (CASE)
DirectPostgraduate research
Ideas for curriculum developmentMovement of peopleSharing costs of education
DirectPostgraduate teaching
Funding for specific programmesIndustry representatives on programme committeesIndustry experts teaching on university programmes
DirectUndergraduate teaching
Funding for curriculum in line with ‘employability agenda’MediatedUndergraduate teaching
Teaching and training
Legitimate/illegitimat
e
ExchangeDirect/mediatedActivity
The causal problem
• What are the effects (impact) of academy industry relationships on the organisations involved?
The normative problem?
• Are academy industry links inherently desirable and beneficial?
The university missions
• Three missions of the contemporary university:– Teaching and training
– Research
– The ‘third mission’
The constitutive mission of the universities is teaching. Research is to a large degree optional.
University missions and activities
• Activities and missions– Missions involve a degree of compulsion
– Missions make expectations universal
– Missions shift sets of activities from peripheries to the organisational core
What is the ‘third mission’: some definitions
• All encompassing definitions (Jones, 2002; Jacob et al. 2003; etc.)
• Emphasising commercial aspects;
• Emphasising ‘wider engagement’ kind issues;
• Definitions by example
• Ideological definitions
• but all or most of these are functional definitions
What the ‘third mission’: is it new?
• No, it is not new…
• Yes it is new…
• No distinction between “third stream activities” and the re-framing these as one of the missions of contemporary universities.
Is the ‘third mission’ really new?
• As a set of activities – no– Universities have always been useful in both teaching and research
and scholarship
– Universities have for the most part been sensitive to the problems of society and economy
– Universities have mostly been directly involved with society and economy
Is the ‘third mission’ really new?
• As an organisational mission – yes– Expectations to interact with non-academic domains
– Expectations for interaction are universal
– Shifts ‘third stream activities’ from the periphery to the core of the university
The third mission: a relational definition
If the “third mission” is to be understood and its implications usefully discussed it ought to be defined not in functional but in relational terms, hence:
…it is the institutional imperative of the university to engage in variety of exchanges with non-academic domains thus establishing different kinds of relationships…
Implication…
The third mission is not about the gradual absorption of new functions and activities by the university but about altering the ways in which the university carries out its existing activities.
The transformation of the university
Transformations can be situated on a continuum between the University of Infinite Wisdom and the University of Prose and Packaging.
UIW – good at selling what they already produce (Private for Profit University)
UPP – trying to produce things that the could sell (Service Provider)
Are the links between academy and industry inherently desirable?
