Growing Value: Business-University Collaboration for the 21st Century

This is the fourth and final report of the Enhancing Value Task Force. At the beginning of the Task Force, we set out to review and research ways of enhancing the value of universities and the public research base, and to make key recommendations to support value creation. In this report, we draw on our three research reports and extensive consultations with business and academic leaders in particular our Steering and Working Groups. We would like to thank everyone involved in what has been a wide ranging and deep engagement with this most vital of challenges for the UK economy. " Universities are… first and foremost designed to achieve a new understanding of natural phenomena and technologies: in this task they are naturally inventive. Conversely, in modern free market economies, it is firms that have the incentives and governance structures to make innovation their central goal, and are expected to be the almost exclusive sources of innovation. " Foray and Lissoni, Handbook of the Economics of Innovation i " …the issue is not about isolating the impact of publicly-funded research… It is instead about analysing how best to understand and manage connections…between differently funded and motivated research efforts in a system of knowledge production and innovation " Hughes and Martin, The Impact of Public Sector R&D ii " It is the job of universities to 'top up the hopper' of ideas. " iii " Why struggle alone when you can work together? And why not capitalise on the proximity of academia, industry and biotech? " GSK Case study 1 1 See p.34 for GSK case study: Biomedical Cluster