Contribution of female inventors to technological collaboration between high-tech firms and university in close proximity: Effect of innovative firm's characteristics

Understanding the patterns of innovative technological collaboration between universities and clusters of high-tech firms, along with the involvement of female inventors, is crucial for both regional and national development. Here, we explore the technological collaboration between Silicon Fen (SF) firms and University of Cambridge (UoC) as a cluster of high-tech businesses and a main research university located in close proximity, respectively, focusing on the involvement of female inventors, based on the evaluation of join patent ownership, and examination of technological collaboration strength (TCS), with respect to the characteristics of firms such as age, size and sector. A quantitative bibliometric approach is utilised to analyse more than 93,000 patents generated by UoC and SF firms. According to the results obtained, smaller and older businesses exhibit greater collaboration bonds with the university, accommodating a greater proportion of collaborative female inventors. Pharma/Biotech sector of Silicon Fen has a greatest value of TCS (1.6 × 10^–2), and accommodates the greatest ratio of female inventors (20.8 %). Our findings suggest the need to encourage younger and larger businesses, and those beyond the Pharma/Biotech sector to involve more female inventors in their technological collaboration with university, given that university policies can have a positive impact in addressing the gender gap in technology and innovation. Theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed.