Universities of Technology Driving Regional, National and Global Knowledge Networks: Patterns - Dynamics - Effects
Final Report Abstract
Academic researchers have been conceived as major contributors to the technological and economic development of modern industrialized societies for a long time. While earlier conceptual approaches have emphasized institutional aspects of academia-industry collaboration (e.g. notion of ‘triple helix’ of academia-industry-government interaction, idea of the ‘entrepreneurial university’), the function and implications of socially embedded interactions of individual agents and their networking characteristics have gained particular attention in academic research more recently. In order to address this emerging field and provide major empirical underpinnings for conceptual debates, we have put individual academic researchers and their ego networks centre-stage in this project, conducted collaboratively by a team of scholars from a German and a Dutch university of technology (RWTH Aachen University and Delft University of Technology). We investigate the following related issues: First, we examine how human and social capital of academic researchers affect and are affected by the use, creation and dissemination of knowledge and innovation. Second, we analyse their knowledge networks at regional, national and global scales, emphasizing especially regional university-industry interaction as a focus of regional development strategies. Third, we use our findings to classify the research activities of academic scholars beyond basic and applied research. In particular, we investigate how the characteristics of technical disciplines drive research goals and activities, thereby influencing the direction and accumulation of knowledge and network patterns of academic researchers. We use a comparative approach analysing the situation at RWTH Aachen University and Technische Universiteit Delft. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, we have, on the one hand, conducted a set of personal interviews including in sum 67 scientists. According to a ‘matched pairs’ research design, sampling has covered altogether 31 ‘pairs’ of scientists at both universities that belong to the same field of expertise and are of similar seniority. This sampling design allows for discerning discipline specific networking patterns, marked by similarities across university locations, as well as location and context specific networking patterns, marked by location specific similarities across different disciplines. Various findings with respect to the geographical reach and architecture of networks, types of partners, as well as the dynamics, origin and outcomes of collaborative linkages have been captured. Second, a written online survey has been conducted at both investigated universities, earning valid responses of altogether 393 post doc scientists who met our criteria. Findings provide insight into co-evolutionary developments of human and social capital, and help establishing a more adequate categorization of scientific activities and their relevance for economic development at different spatial scales. The rich empirical base gained in this project enables us to derive various new insights relating to patterns, influencing factors and implications of knowledge-intensive networking of academic researchers. Results may inform academic scientific communities, university management as well as policy makers.
