New capacities and enhanced research agenda for science: Exploring relational cooperation with industry

Abstract

The effects that cooperation with industry generates in public research depend on the specific collaboration scheme. Joint research and research service share some features, such as the frequency and intensity of interactions and knowledge based exchanges, which allow them to be considered as relational schemes. This work investigates the effects that such schemes generate in public research, based on the contributions that industry makes and the way in which they are linked to public learning and the direction of research agenda. A case study is carried out in three sectors, agrobiotechnology, biopharmaceutical and nanotechnology, from a developing country like Argentina, which covers R&D projects included in both schemes. Among the main findings, it is highlighted that, regardless of the intensity of knowledge of the industrial contribution, it can induce in public researchers both learning dynamics and feedback on more basic aspects of their activity. Likewise, industrial contributions in the conception stage of the project make the public applied research agenda expand toward more relevant topics from the economic and social point of view. Finally, industry's knowledge contributions in the laboratory phase, scale change and regulatory aspects, allow public researchers to absorb new for them capacities.