Patents and scientific publications: an empirical analysis of the Italian system of academic professor recruitment

Abstract

The recent increase in patenting by European and American university researchers has raised concerns among observers that increased patenting may be associated with less open publication of research results. This leads us to examine if the propensity to academic patenting would negatively affect publication of scientific research results and, therefore, result in less diffusion of knowledge resources; or, conversely, if it could increase the quantity and quality of scientific publications and therefore improve academic performances. We propose a quantitative approach through which we aim to test whether academic researchers who both publish and patent are less productive than their peers who concentrate exclusively on scholarly publication, in order to communicate their research results. More specifically, by using the statistical model of comparison between sample means, we analyse if the average number of publications by academic inventors is lower than the average of non-academic ones. We use a panel dataset comprising Italian academic researchers who have obtained the National Scientific Qualification as full professor in the se tor “02/B3 - Applied Physi s” in the session 2012. With regard to the relationship between patenting and publishing by university researchers there is not an unanimous doctrinal orientation. Additionally, there is only limited empirical evidence regarding the correlation between these two variables. Our study contributes to the existing literature by supporting the thesis according to which the open publication of university research results is not inhibited by patenting by university faculty members. The outcomes of the application suggest that it would appear appropriate to encourage a greater use of patents by university rese r hers. It would seem in f t th t th nks to the fin n i l support to demi rese r h nd in gener l to the in entives rising from ont t with industry the development of industrial applications is likely to produce an additional stream of results, which are relevant also in the eyes of the scientific community. These observations allow us to assert that patents could be recognized as efficient indicators of knowledge production.

Keywords

• Intellectual capital
• scientific productivity
• academic patenting
• technology transfer