University research and creation of Spin-off: The Spanish case

Abstract

Public administrations are aware of the importance of generating intellectual capital for the economic growth of a nation. Therefore, they have increasingly required universities to play a more active role in developing and exploiting the results of their research. This challenge has been taken on by universities, which have added a new mission aimed at increasing the value of their research through the transfer of new knowledge, experience and technological solutions to the market. The backbone of the European innovation strategy is knowledge transfer from universities to companies, being the programmes supporting the creation of university spin-offs one of its pillars. The aim of this paper is to find out the factors determining the commercial exploitation of university research through companies created for this purpose. Consulting the websites of Spanish universities and their respective Technology Transfer Offices led to the identification of 499 spin-offs. By correlating their number and technological nature with the research potential of the university of origin, the general economic situation and the assistance received in creating this type of companies, through discriminant analysis, a positive relation was found between the creation of university spin-offs and the average number of projects achieved by the university, and their technological nature is positively related to the number of patents awarded to the university. This paper focuses on Spain; however, the aspects addressed are common to other countries, and therefore its results may be of interest to universities and policy makers wishing to promote the commercialisation of research outcomes.