1

Collaboration and commercialisation in a multi faculty

university, interfaculty differences?

* PhD Candidate Maria Ljunggren, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, The Royal

Institute of Technology

PhD Richard Odegrip, Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology, Stockholm

University

PhD Thomas Arctaedius, SU Holding, Stockholm University

* Corresponding author.

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Abstract

Prominent research has focused on knowledge transfer and its change through the last decades,

from international comparative approaches to relationships between public research organisations

and the surrounding society. Within the academia, collaboration have mostly concerned natural

sciences, engineering and technology, and researchers from such disciplines generally possess a

more positive attitude to collaboration activities. In our study we aim to add to the research on

collaboration between academia and industry through a quantitative analysis of attitudes to

collaboration and commercialisation and level of collaboration activity among researchers from

the faculties of humanities, social science, and natural science within a multi faculty university.

In accordance with previous studies, the results demonstrate for example, that professors, and

researchers with a high number of scientific publications, and researchers from natural science

have a more positive attitude towards collaboration. However, researchers from social science are

significantly more engaged in collaboration and commercialisation activities than natural

scientist. We conclude that the attitude to collaboration and actual participation in collaboration

and commercialisation activities not necessarily correlates.

Keywords: Collaboration, Commercialisation, Social science, Natural science, Humanities,

Attitudes, Publishing activity, Social capital.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The significance of being part of an attractive national and international network has been widely

acknowledged and increased the pressure for universities to become more entrepreneurial, and

interact with the regional community and economy (Lundvall 1996, Clark 1998). Still, the

relation between basic research or non-applied research and the innovation process is complex

and a field of innovation studies has emerged (Fagerberg and Verspagen 2009). Researchers have

developed concepts of inter-firm and public-private collaboration analysing collaboration

between different actors through the regional and proximity aspect for innovation systems

(Freeman 1987), regional innovation systems (Doloreux & Parto 2004), national innovation

system (Arundel & Geuna 2004), and clusters (Porter 1990).

The innovation process has also been analysed through the linear model, which emphasised a

straight innovation process, starting with the basic research and finalising with the innovation at

the market. This simplified model of innovation has been criticised and a developed model

followed indicating that researchers were interlinked in a more circular and fruitful interactive

fashion also focusing on the firm’s needs and demands, learning process, as well as their

absorptive capacity, referred to as the chain-linked model (Cohen and Levinthal 1990, Rosenberg

1990, Kline & Rosenberg 1986). Triple helix and Mode 2 are further concepts that originate from

the increasing emphasis on a circular interaction between the academia, the industry as well as

the public sector (Gibbons et al. 1994, Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff 2000). The significance for

interaction in the innovation process creates a challenge for inter-organisational networks and a

need for developing trust between the actors. An emphasis on social capital building can function

as the base for establishing trust within increasing dense networks inside and between the public

and private sectors as well as for inter-firm relations and interactive learning (Wolfe 2002).

Maskell (2000) connects social capital to both internal knowledge production and knowledge

exchange, suggesting that knowledge exchange between firms results in more production related

links and is directly linked to organisations’ innovation capabilities. A well established social

capital decreases expenses and reduces time devoted to knowledge exchange between

organisations.

The building of social capital that supports dense networks of inter-organisational relations and

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the process of interactive learning also becomes an individual benefit or resource as described by

Bourdieu (1986). It involves an emphasis on individuals sharing of social ties to advance the

creation of effective norms and facilitate action. A norm, in terms of social capital building,

functions as investments, which together with information sharing and trust are significant

foundations for individuals when being admitted into a group’s social capital. (Burt 1992, 2000,

Coleman 1990).

1.1 Conceptual framework

Westlund (2003) explains social capital as the social non-formalised networks that are used by

the networks nodes/actors to distribute norms, values, preferences and other social attributes and

characteristics. He relates former mentioned attributes to the higher education institutions and

divide social (HEI) into external and internal social capital. The internal social capital

encapsulates individuals’ networks and traditional norms, for example illustrated in the academic

peer-review process. The external social capital is better explained in relation to the development

of collaboration with the surrounding society meaning that HEIs experience an increasing

significance for university staffs’ external contacts with, for instance, external financiers, and

regional firms. The development of such type of contacts indicates the HEIs ability to build and

establish external social capital (Westlund 2003). Consequently it is relevant to include both type

of social capital when discussing social capital development among academics within the HEI

(Westlund 2009).

To form a base for a collaboration climate, the structure of internal incentives and traditions, the

internal social capital, should interrelate with the building of external social capital. Suggestively,

changes in internal social capital can only come about if it is to the advantage of teachers and

researchers within the HEI. If collaboration with other parts of society should mean, for example,

better salaries, more research funds, and academic qualifications, it is probable that changed

attitudes would lead to a greater interest in building links to stakeholders outside HEIs. So far,

only a few studies on attitudes and relations in Swedish universities and their importance for

building external links and relations have been made (Wahlbin & Wigren 2007, Johansson &

Westlund 2008). In this respect research on companies is much more advanced than research on

universities.

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1.2 Main proposition

In this article the definition of social capital builds on the definition proposed by Westlund (2009)

that emphasises the actual use of social capital between the nodes/actors to distribute norms,

values, preferences and other social attributes and characteristics. It is also significant to bear in

mind that networks are purely social and non-formalised. Our analysis focuses on the university

participation level in collaboration activities and attitude to establish external social capital

through collaboration. We have chosen to analyse all faculties at the University, which allows for

a comparison between faculties level of collaboration work as well as the difference between

academic ranks. We aim to present the results of a survey including researchers from social

science, natural science and the humanities at a multi faculty university. The purpose is to analyse

whether there is a difference between faculties in terms of individual researchers’ attitude to

collaboration and participation in collaboration activities including activities relating to

commercialisation of research. We believe that participation in collaboration activities and

attitude to collaboration both relates to the internal social capital that emphasise norms and

attitudes within an academic group and the external social capital in terms of relations with the

external partners. The participation in collaboration activities and a positive attitude to

collaboration suggestively imply a link between internal and external social capital building on an

individual level.

2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH

In the following section we aim to present previous research in relation to our three areas of

interest, collaboration activities, attitudes to collaboration and commercialisation. Collaboration

between HEI and surrounding environment have been undertaken by several prominent

researchers but there is still a lack of research relating collaboration to the building of internal

and external social capital.

Collaboration projects encapsulate several levels of interest. For example, previous research on

researchers’ and company representatives’ motivations for participating in industry-academia

collaboration indicate that researchers’ reason for collaborating often lies in the interest in

evaluating applications for basic research, while industry representatives are motivated by

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production development (Lee 2005, Bodas-Freitas & Verspagen 2009). Furthermore,

collaboration occurring within education most often focuses on master theses. For example,

Bodas-Freitas & Verspagen (2009) argue that collaboration projects focusing on master theses in

the industry are a much stronger instrument for promoting collaboration than policy makers

previously believed. Previous research also indicates that researchers involved in industry

collaboration are more prone to publish scientifically, which indicates that collaborative and

scientific publishing are mutually beneficial rather than mutually exclusive (McKelvey et al.

2008, Wahlbin & Wigren 2007, Gulbrandsen & Smeby 2005, Balconi & Laboranti 2006). Kyvik

(2005) also found that highly productive researchers also publish more popular scientific research

and that the social sciences and the humanities are more active in the public debate and popular

writing than researchers from the faculties of medicine, technology and natural science.

To foster successful collaboration there is a need to acknowledge the organisational and

institutional norms, such as culture and policies. Lee (1996) argued that university

representatives’ view on collaboration mainly consist of two significant factors, the need for

funding from the industry and an implied fear of losing the academic freedom. However, research

indicates that the researchers experience and view on collaboration and commercialisation is

more complex than that. Bok (2003) observed that academics were concerned that a close

university and industry collaboration would have a negative effect on academic integrity and

academic freedom in terms of focusing on short-term research results and (see also Witt et al.

1994, Blumenthal, et al.1986). Lee (1996) illustrated that opinions on academic freedom indeed

were divided but most faculty seemed certain that university and industry collaboration was

likely to increase the pressure for short-term research inevitably affecting long-term basic

research. D’Este & Perkmann (2010) studied academics from the engineering and physical

sciences and suggest that most academics engage with industry focused on improving their

research rather than on the potential momentary values that would come with commercialising

their research. This result did change in terms of terms of the channels of engagement.

As presented, the tradition and attitude to collaborate differs between faculties and not all

academics are involved in collaboration activities (Geuna & Muscio 2008, Blumenthal et

al.1996). Blumenthal et al. (1996) found that faculty with an industry support still produced

equally academically in similarity with the staff having no industry support, one difference

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was that the groups with industry support tended to a higher extent look for commercial

potential in their research. Behrens and Gray (2001) studied graduate students experience of

academic freedom when being funded by the industry. They found that the differences were

minor and related to structural aspects of student’s research involvement rather than what the

students experienced and potential outcomes of the collaboration.

Castro et al (2008) argued the transfer process to be different for researchers from the

humanities and the social sciences having a focus on the public use of their research whereas

engineering and natural science tailor collaboration towards commercialisation (McKelvey et

al. 2008). Researchers from life science and biotechnology have demonstrated to be both

commercially active and academically productive (Zinner et al. 2009, Blumenthal et al.

1986). In line with previous mentioned results, a study of academics from India and the US

level of support for collaboration illustrated that researchers from the engineering disciplines

and applied sciences tended to be more in favour of collaboration such as commercialisation

of research and consultancy, than researchers from the other faculties (Nagpaul 2000, Lee

1996). Swedish researchers from the natural sciences and engineering have also expressed a

positive attitude to creation of new business and patents, which also positively correlates

with their level of collaboration and scientific publishing (McKelvey et al. 2008). Another

finding from a Canada is that collaboration in general appear to be of little interest to

researchers within the social sciences, humanities and arts although, senior researchers from

the humanities and social sciences indicated a more positive attitude to collaboration than

researchers in the beginning of their career (Langford et al. 2009).

Clark (1998) discussed organisational change from the universities perspective and argued that

the change was concerned with the remains of their marginality and excellence when adapting to

changing and expanding demands to become more commercial. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004)

described HEIs process to integrate in the new knowledge economy referred to as academic

capitalism. The concept of academic capitalism suggests that different groups of actors within the

HEI create new circuits of knowledge to link HEI with society. However, the faculties involved

with the market also expressed an uncertainty of the boundaries between the public and the

private spheres, which created a conflict of interest.

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However, the term commercialisation does not only signify activities intending to bring

commercial use to research but also includes activities that embrace spreading research to the

regional community with a more entrepreneurial attitude and socio-economic value. Lee (1996)

found that a great majority of researchers thought that the university should offer a proper

infrastructure for supporting commercialisation of research and encourage researchers to be

active as consultants for private industry. According to Geiger (1993), academics should re-

evaluate their focus on basic research and envelope applied research as an opportunity for

increasing public good and regional growth, which would allow academics to participate more in

the commercialisation of research, consulting, and entrepreneurial activities. However, the

pressure for commercialisation of research must not neglect the significance for a continuing

development of basic research with high level of academic freedom (Pavitt 2001). The increasing

pressure for HEIs to become more entrepreneurial also equalise a need for several types of

research financiers (Clark 1998).

The activities included in our study involve collaboration with external actors outside the HEI

and add to previous research through emphasising several different collaborative activities within

three different faculties’ social science, humanities, and natural science. Our study measures

individual researchers’ attitudes to commercialisation and collaboration in terms of their attitude

to academic freedom, the experienced impact collaboration have on their academic career and the

degree of support for collaboration they experience at an institutional level. The focus is on

individual researchers’ experience of organising workshops including both the industry and the

academy, master theses, participating in boards and consultant work for organisations outside the

academia, as well as publishing for the general public.

We believe that researchers’ attitudes to collaboration differ between faculties and academic rank

corresponding to their previous tradition and experience of collaboration and commercialisation

and participation in such activities. Researchers from faculties with a modest tradition of

collaboration such as the humanities and social sciences are believed to engage less in

collaborative activities and commercialisation than natural sciences with a more profound

tradition for collaboration. Since previous research illustrate that the faculty of natural science

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and professors participates in collaboration activities to a greater extent, we also expected them to

possess a more positive attitude to collaboration and commercialisation activities with a greater

internal social capital and focus on building external social capital. We further believe that the

natural science faculty commercialises to a greater extent, and that the researchers are more prone

to find more commercial value in their research. To test to what extent our beliefs are correct, a

number of hypotheses have been generated from the theoretical framework of this paper:

Table 1. Questionnaire questions and alternative hypothesis

Questions Alternative hypothesis H1

QJA1. Have you participated in research projects during 2008

where the organisation funding the research has promoted

participation with an organisation (such as a company or local

authority) other than the University or another institute of

education?

Professors and natural scientists have been participating to a larger

extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from the

social sciences and humanities.

QJA2. Have you published a scientific publication during

2008 that was co-authored with someone not employed by the

University or another institute of higher education?

Professors and natural scientists have been co-authoring to a larger

extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from the

social sciences and humanities.

QJA3. Have you worked as an advisor/consultant for an

organisation other than the University or another institute of

higher education during 2008?

Professors and natural scientists have been working as an

advisor/consultant to a larger extent than researchers from other

groups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

QJA4. Have you held a directorship on a board apart from the

University or another institute of higher education during 2008

(other than local associations, tenant-owner associations or

similar)?

Professors and natural scientists have held directorship to a larger

extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from the

social sciences and humanities.

QJA5. Have you arranged assignments for and/or supervised

students who have resolved problems for companies or public

sector organisations during 2008 – in the form of projects,

papers, theses, etc?

Professors and natural scientists have been arranging and

supervised students to a larger extent than researchers from other

groups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

QJA7. I consider that increased collaboration by Stockholm

University would: 1 (substantially restrict academic freedom)

– 7 (substantially increase academic freedom).

Professors and researchers from natural sciences believe that

increased collaboration would substantially increase academic

freedom.

QJA8. At my place of work/institution within Stockholm

University there is: 1 (no support for collaboration) – 7 (keen

support for collaboration that can offer greater resources).

Professors and researchers from natural sciences experience a keen

support for collaboration.

QJA9. Where I work within Stockholm University,

commitment to collaboration has: 1 (a highly negative impact

on one's academic career) – 7 (a highly favourable impact on

Professors and researchers from natural sciences believe that

increased collaboration have a highly favourable impact on one’s

academic career.

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one's academic career).

QJA10. Have you conducted any business activities in

companies that you own wholly or partially?

Professors and natural scientists have been conducting business

activities to a larger extent than researchers from other groups and

researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

QJA11. Was the business idea related to your own research

finding?

Professors and natural scientists connect their research to

commercialization to a larger extent than researchers from other

groups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

3. METHOD AND DATA

During the last decade, universities have demonstrated a good will to develop a flexible

infrastructure to enhance collaboration. Stockholm University is an example of a university

with a large research volume and it provides an excellent opportunity for analysing multi

faculty collaboration with the four faculties: natural sciences, humanities, and social

sciences. The faculties of social sciences and humanities are the largest in Sweden. 2006 a

new unit for collaboration support and innovation, and an incubator were established in order

to develop the central infrastructure for collaboration and commercialisation of research. In

our study we have not tried to separate between basic research and applied research

Our case is built on data drawn from a web-based survey conducted among all faculty members

of researchers, i.e. teachers, and postgraduate students, totalling approximately 3200 respondents.

Only employees working no less than 40% were asked to complete the survey. At the closure of

the survey there were 1469 replies (N = 1469), corresponding to a reply frequency of 46%

percent, failed addresses excluded. The response rate was slightly higher in natural sciences (50

percent) than in the humanities and social sciences (46 percent). The faculty of law and cross

disciplinary centres was excluded from the data due to being merely 37 respectively 22 of the

respondents. Moreover, the response rate among professors (62 percent) and PhD students (60

percent) were higher than among the other groups. The variation in response rate relating to

academic rank results in a limitation when analysing research assistants, assistants, lecturers,

docents, and fellows participation in collaboration activities. The questionnaire also included the

independent variables, academic credentials (doctorate, licentiate, first degree), number of

popular scientific publications (0 publications, 1-3 publications, 4-6 publications, more than 7

publications), and number of scientific publications (0 publications, 1-3 publications, 4-6

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publications, more than 7 publications). However, these were taken out from the analysis due to

us wanting to focus purely on faculty and academic rank. The reason for these groups having a

low response rate is not clear but it could possibly be that they are less active in research and

more focused on teaching. There were no significant differences in the response rate between

men and women and age of respondents, which is the reason why we have not differed between

men and women in the analysis. Our results are useful for comparative studies on the

development of collaboration and commercialisation infrastructure in similar HEI.

To narrow down the definition of collaboration, we have focused on collaboration activities that

we believe enhance the external social capital, individual board membership outside the HEI or

another HEI, functioning as an advisory or consultant outside the HEI or with another HEI,

participating in projects where the funding agency implied collaboration with an external part,

co-authoring with an external part outside the HEI, arranging assignments for and/or supervised

students who have resolved problems for companies or public sector organisations, and

participating in commissioned education.

We used a chi square test for analysing the data considering our data was both categorical and the

majority of the answers were nominal with an exception for three questions consisting of ordinal

data. The Chi square statistics χ2 is used to analyse univariate distribution of qualitative variables

and to test correlations in cross tabulations (Djurfeltd et al. 2010). When analysing qualitative

variables the Chi square statistics χ2 is the used method to compare the expected value with the

observed to determine whether the variables are statistically independent or associated. We

wanted to test whether there was a difference between two or more categories. The alternative

hypothesis was tried in order to analyse whether there in fact was a difference between the groups

and if that potential correlation was significant. The validity for our data was reliable since all

variables were grouped into categories and the number of respondents was larger than 30 and the

expected frequency was not smaller than 5 in 20 percent of the cases (Ejlertsson 1984, Howell

2009). The alternative hypothesis will be rejected if the observed value is larger than the

tabulated value. To avoid a Type one error1 we have used significance test with the chosen

significance level p < 0,05.

1 A type one error occurs when the null hypothesis is rejected when being true (Djurfeltd et al. 2010).

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The analysis contained the following independent variables, faculty (natural science, social

science, humanities), and position (PhD students, assistants, lecturer, research assistants,

associate professors, professors, adjunct professors). The data was qualitative and nominal

(question 1-6, 10-12) and ordinal (question 7-9). Dependent variable was the outcome of

questions 1-12. Question 7-9 includes a scale for attitude (see table 1) to collaboration we have

measured the reply frequency of the highest score on that scale.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To find out whether our hypotheses prove true we firstly preformed a cross tabulation. The

faculty of natural science was tested against the faculty of social science and humanities. The

result of the cross tabulation indicated that larger percentage of subjects within the group of

social science and humanities were active in the collaboration and commercialisation activities

whereas a larger percentage of the subjects within the group of natural science expressed a

positive attitude on the attitude questions and the question on scientific publication with a part

outside the academic sector.

Table 2. Percent “Yes” replies within the two groups, Faculty of Social science and

humanities and the Faculty of Natural science.

The percentage level was an interesting outcome and contradicted what we firstly intended to test

in some of our hypothesis. Thus we revised our hypothesis on questions 3,4,5,11 for the Chi

Question Percent within group for “Yes”

Humanities and Social sciences

Percent within group for “Yes”

Natural science

1 40,9 47

2 30,6 38,5

3 49,4 37,9

4 27,8 18,9

5 28,5 25,8

6 40,5 25,8

7 15,3

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

22,1

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

8 20,3

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

30,9

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

9 10,4

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

22,9

(percent of respondents that answered 7)

10 21,2 13,8

11 9,2 6,4

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square statistics χ2 test and tested whether the faculty of social science instead collaborated more

than the other faculties on the questions where their percentage indicated this.

Table 3. Questionnaire questions and modified alternative hypothesis.

Questions Alternative hypothesis H1

QJA3. Have you worked as an advisor/consultant for

an organisation other than the University or another

institute of higher education during 2008?

Social scientists have been working as an

advisor/consultant to a larger extent than researchers from

other groups and faculties.

QJA4. Have you held a directorship on a board apart

from the University or another institute of higher

education during 2008 (other than local associations,

tenant-owner associations or similar)?

Social scientists have held directorship to a larger extent

than researchers from other faculties.

QJA5. Have you arranged assignments for and/or

supervised students who have resolved problems for

companies or public sector organisations during 2008 –

in the form of projects, papers, theses, etc?

Social scientists have been arranging and supervised

students to a larger extent than researchers from other

faculties.

QJA10. Have you conducted any business activities in

companies that you own wholly or partially?

Social scientists have been conducting business activities to

a larger extent than researchers from other faculties.

QJA11. Was the business idea related to your own

research finding?

Social scientists connect their research to

commercialization to a larger extent than researchers from

other faculties.

The results from chi square statistics χ2 comparing the faculty of natural science with the faculty

of social science and humanities led us to accept the hypothesis on four question indicating that

natural scientist publish scientifically together with an external part to a significantly greater

extent than other faculties and have a more positive attitude to collaboration, its infrastructure and

relation to academic freedom.

Table 4. Natural science versus the Social science and Humanities

Question Percent within group

for “Yes”

Alternative

hypothesis H1

Chi square test P value Df

1 HSs 40,9

N 47,0

Reject 5,380 ,068 2

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2 HSs 30,6

N 38,5

Accept 13,123 ,001 2

7 HSs 15,3

N 22,1

(percent of level 7)

Accept 15,926 ,003 4

8 HSs 20,3

N 30,9

(percent of level 7)

Accept 27,249 ,000 5

9 HSs 10,4

N 22,9

(percent of level 7)

Accept 41,053 ,000 5

(HSc= Faculty of Humanities and Social science, N= Faculty of Natural science)

We separated the faculty of social science to test against the faculty of natural science and

humanities on the questions 1,3,4,5,6,10,11. The results indicated that the faculty of social

science were significantly more active in collaboration activities than the other faculties.

Table 5. Social science versus the Humanities and Natural science

(Ss= Faculty of Social Science, NH= Faculty of Natural science and Humanities.)

In difference from the comparisons between faculties the results from the cross tabulation

comparing professors with other academic ranks indicated that the professors to a larger extent

participated in collaboration activities than other groups. One exception was question 9, which

was removed from the hypothesis testing. However, for the other questions we did not change in

original hypothesis when performing significance testing but continued as intended. The chi

square statistics χ2 comparing professors with the other academic groups resulted in an

acceptance of all hypotheses except for question 7. This indicates that professors are more prone

Question Percent within group

for “Yes”

Alternative

hypothesis H1

Chi square test P value Df

3 Ss 53,5

NH 40

Accept 11,812 ,003 2

4 Ss 29,3

NH 21,5

Accept 17,637 ,000 2

5 Ss 36,3

NH 22,4

Accept 33,385 ,000 2

6 Ss 46,3

NH 28,2

Accept 47,984 ,000 2

10 Ss 14,9%

NH 13,8%

Accept 20,374 ,000 2

11 Ss 11,6

NH 6,1

Accept 20,172 ,000 2

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to collaborate than other academic ranks and have a more positive attitude to collaboration than

other academic ranks.

Table 6. Professors versus other academic ranks

(Prof= professors, Other= PhD students, Assistants, Adjunct lecturer, Research Assistants, Senior

lecturer, Fellow/Docent, Adjunct professor)

Our results demonstrate that the participation in collaboration activities vary between

representatives from different faculties. We have rejected the hypothesis stating that the

faculty of natural science would be more prone to participate in collaboration activities on all

questions except the second question, which indicated that they are more prone to publish

scientifically together with an actor outside the scientific community. However, by contrast to

Nagpaul (2000) and Lee (1996) previous research, natural scientists are not significantly

active on boards and in consultancy work but, as previously mentioned, more active in

scientific collaborations with an external part. Such collaboration may often result in

scientific publishing, which also should engage external social capital building through

quality control by external partners. We believe this is the case due to natural scientist are

Question Percent within

group for “Yes”

Alternative

hypothesis H1

Chi square test P value Df

1 Prof 66,4

Other 38,1

Accept 69,713 ,000 2

2 Prof 55,9

Other 28,8

Accept 70,772 ,000 2

3 Prof 70,3

Other 39,3

Accept 81,924 ,000 2

4 Prof 45,3

Other 19,8

Accept 74,397 ,000 2

5 Prof 47,3

Other 23,1

Accept 61,597 ,000 2

6 Prof 49,2

Other 31,6

Accept 28,771 ,000 2

7 Prof 12,5

Other 19,2

(percent of level 7)

Reject 27,240 ,000 4

8 Prof 25,4

Other 24,1

(percent of level 7)

Accept 29,727 ,000 5

10 Prof 27,7

Other 16,2

Accept 18,899 ,000 2

11 Prof 16,4

Other 6,3

Accept 30,203 ,000 2

12 Prof 34,8

Other 26,5

Accept 7,852 ,020 2

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more likely to perform applied research than social science and therefore have a higher

frequency of publications that are co-authored with the research intensive industry.

Collaboration in terms of consultancy have not proved to be extensive within the natural

sciences demonstrate that despite previously mentioned publishing pattern the level of

external social capital is still low. A possible explanation is that collaboration in scientific

publishing often focuses on a specific research question, which may be insufficient for

building external social capital between the partners.

Previous research demonstrates that attitudes to collaboration differ between faculties and

academic ranks (Langford et al. 2009), with researchers within the humanities possessing an

outspoken fear of losing their academic freedom (Lee 2005, Castro et al. 2008). Our result

indicates that attitudes differ between faculties. Significantly, the faculty of natural science

believes that the support for collaboration is good at their workplace. Representatives for the

faculty of natural science also believe that commitment to collaboration has a highly favourable

impact on their academic career. However, the results illustrate that the researchers from the

natural sciences are more positive to collaboration in theory than practise since the natural

scientist demonstrated to be fairly inactive in collaboration activities despite having a positive

attitude. Suggestively their internal social capital indicating a positive attitude to collaboration

does not correlate with their external social capital and actual low participation rate. The

indication that the faculty of natural science is restrictive with the type of external social capital

building activities as measured in the questionnaire contradicts previous research to some extent

since previous research suggest that natural sciences collaborate more than social sciences.

The opposite pattern was discovered when testing the faculty of social science against the other

faculties. The faculty of social sciences was compared to the other faculties more engaged in all

other collaboration activities still having a negative attitude towards some measured aspects of

collaboration. Overall, our results suggest that the faculty social sciences are engaged in the

surrounding environment and have a given platform for generating more external social capital

also illustrating a strong internal social capital regardless of not demonstrating positive attitudes

to collaboration on the attitude questions. It could indicate that the interfaculty differences in

attitudes to collaboration does not relate to actual participation level illustrating a possible

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conflict between the existing internal social capital and building of external social capital.

Individuals within the faculty of natural science do not believe collaboration being a threat to the

academic freedom compared to the other faculties even though not actually being active in

collaboration. Their internal social capital does not appear to be connected to their building of

external social capital, which complicates the progress of the external social capital.

Our result also shows that attitudes differ between academic ranks. Professors are

significantly more positive to collaboration expressing that they experience support for

collaboration and commitment to this at their institution. These results link to previous

sections demonstrating that professors are more engaged in collaboration and possess a more

positive attitude to such activities than their fellow research colleagues. Our results indicate

that academic ranks have a significant effect on the level of external social capital building in

terms of participating in research projects where external partners participation has been

promoted by the organisation funding the collaboration or published with an external co-

author. Professors show a significant level of participation compared to the other academic

ranks suggesting that engagement to collaboration and building of external social capital

increase with academic prestige.

Presumably, professors have gained more scientific acclamation and have already built an

internal social capital through consistent peer review processes. This provides a possibility

and acceptance for generating more external social capital, which in turn generates more

contacts and more possibility for participating in collaboration activities such as consultancy,

boards, and engaging students in collaboration with the industry. A reason for less accredited

groups being significantly less active in collaboration activities may be due to the focus on

scientific accreditation that still needs to focus on internal social capital with the traditional

peer review process. It may also indicate that earning a certain prestige within academia and

building sufficient internal social capital is necessary in order to build external social capital.

In other words, collaboration requires academic experience, which also relates to previous

research on researchers with high number of scientific publishing correlating with

participating in collaboration activities. We also suggest that this demonstrate that the

industry rather collaborate with researchers having a high scientific credibility and high

18

internal social capital.

Additionally our results provide some evidence on differences in commercialization engagement

and faculty as well as academic rank. As we expected in our hypothesis, professors demonstrated

to have been more active in business activities than other researchers and see more potential for

commercialization in their own research. More interestingly we had to reject our hypothesis that

the faculty of natural sciences was more engaged in commercialization through business

experience and relating their looking for commercial potential in their research. Instead we

discovered, in similarity with the engagement in collaboration activities, that the faculty of social

science was more prone to being active in a business and also relating their own scientific finding

to potential commercialization. Even if the researchers from the social sciences did not express

any trust to the HEI ability to support collaboration and commercialization they still indulged in

both type of activities.

5. CONCLUSION

Our results firstly confirmed already established knowledge indicating that professor’s and highly

productive scientists are more engaged in collaboration activities than other academics. More

interestingly, our results also indicated on several levels that social scientists are more engaged in

collaboration activities and commercialisation than the other faculties. Natural scientists

demonstrated to be active in collaboration on only one level, publishing with an external part.

Such type of collaboration may not establish any type of external social capital that would

generate more types of collaboration activities.

Interestingly, natural scientists demonstrated to be more positive to different aspects of

collaboration even though not being very active in the actual activities. Overall, natural scientists

tended to be less apt to build external social capital and commercialise research than social

scientist. This illustrates, in opposite to what we believed, that the attitudes towards collaboration

and commercialisation are detached from real participation in activities and instead an expression

of an established culture within the faculty, their internal social capital. The results lead us to

believe that social non-formalised networks that form external social capital are too complex to

only depend on a stable internal social capital and so far difficult to predict.

19

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