The Handbook of Technology and Innovation Management

16.4. The Contribution of Universities

Universities are public entities that contribute to technological advance through the production and dissemination of knowledge as well as through the education of students. Salter and Martin (2001) find that the literature describes six ways in which universities influence innovation and technological change:

• increasing the stock of knowledge;

• training skilled graduates;

• creating new instrumentation and methodologies;

• facilitating the formation of problem solving networks;

• increasing the capacity for problem solving;

• creating new firms.

Yet this conceptualization reduces universities to a simple factor of production and ignores the fact that universities have long been places of contemplation and exploration, unfettered inquiry, free expression, and public discourse. Gertler and Vinodrai (2005) argue that universities are a creative force in the economy, foster tolerance and diversity, and create humane capital in the form of people who are better citizens and members of society.

The link between scientific research, technological innovation, and economic growth was demonstrated empirically by Mansfield (1972), Rosenberg (1974), Sveikauskas (1981), and Adams (1990). Sorenson and Fleming (2004) find that science is specifically relevant to complex inventions: public science helps to delineate the search space and increases the efficiency of the invention process.

The historical conceptualization of innovation, the linear model, places universities ...