Study On The Mechanism Of Faculty’s Participation In University-Industry Collaboration

Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Scientific and Technological System and Speeding up the National Innovation System (2012) has proposed that "efforts will be made to speed up the establishment of a market-oriented system for technological innovation in which enterprises play the leading role, and the efforts of enterprises, universities and research institutes are combined". It can be seen that University-Industry collaboration is an important part and critical path of technological innovation system and the academic research on University-Industry collaboration has become an important topic in the related fields. As a specific undertaker in the aspect of study, faculty’s performance has a profound effect on the whole performance of University-Industry collaboration. The participation of faculty is significant to enrich the theory and guide the practice of University-Industry collaboration.The thesis discusses the mechanism of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration in three aspects:(1) The motivations, forms and benefits of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration;(2) The influencing factors of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration;(3) The relations between forms and benefits of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration. Through the research, the article has drawn some meaningful conclusions:(1) There are six motivations, four froms and three kinds of benefits. By factor analysis, the study determines that the six motivations of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration are to seek funds, fulfill social responsibility, advance study, interest, train students and receive reputation;21kinds of forms of University-Industry collaboration can be classified into4categories based on the difference of commercialization level of the University-Industry collaboration form: academic commercialization, new technology research and development, technical services and personal exchange and academic exchange; faculty can gain3kinds of benefits from university-industry collaboration by factor analysis:capital gains, research gains and honor gains.(2) The participation of faculty in University-Industry collaboration will be effected by broad factors. This study makes probing analysis of interview data by grounded theory, finding that factors of government level such as scientific research policy design, tax on technology shares, national intangible property management and funding supportive policy of university-industry collaboration, factors of university level such as the intention university put on university-industry collaboration, faculty’s performance assessment, service and management in university-industry collaboration, income distribution and mechanism of technology transfer, factors of individual level such as faculty’s participation desires, conflict management between university-industry collaboration and academic research, personal competence and self-recognition and factors of enterprise level such as strength of research, enterprise’s sincerity and transformation initiative make a difference to the participation of faculty in University-Industry collaboration.Then, by regression analysis, it proves that the factors of individual level, department level and university level make a difference to the participation of faculty in University-Industry collaboration. Empirical study finds that individual level factors such as gender, age, professional title, funding motivation, honor motivation, social responsibility motivation, social capital and academic capacity, department level factors such as discipline, leadership support, colleague participation, the number of enrollment and capacity of research and university level factors such as climate of university-industry collaboration, policy of income share and policy of performance evaluation has significant influence on faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration.(3) There has been a pronounced correlation between the forms and benefits of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration. The study result of regression analysis shows that difference in the form of university-industry collaboration of faculty’s participation results in different benefits. However, faculty’s participation in academic commercialization and academic exchange make a statistically insignificant difference to earning relative profits and faculty’s participation in new technology research and development will bring capital gains and participation in technological services and personnel exchanges will bring research gains and honor gains. Therefore, this research result will provide faculty with demonstrational gist to choose appropriate form of university-industry collaboration according to earnings target.Finally, this paper proposes some countermeasures that can promote faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration. From national level, top-level design of policy of scientific research and university-industry collaboration should be strengthened, including desalting the division between basic research and application research, adjusting the function of NSFC, increasing support to research projects that match specialized fields, duty-free or taxed-deferred for technology shares, delegating the administrative authorities of national intangible property and so on. From university level, faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration should be encouraged, including taking the differences of disciplines into consideration in faculty assessment, putting the classification of faculty positions into practice, promoting the profits of university-industry collaboration, setting up offices for professional university-industry collaboration, establishing industrial technology research institute, expanding faculty’s decision-making power for enrollment and so on. At last, faculty should be clear about his/her position in University-Industry collaboration, achieving a balance between teaching, research and University-Industry collaboration, making full use of advantages and disadvantages and making right choice to take part in university-industry collaboration according earnings target.The main contribution of this thesis includes the following points:the motivations, forms and benefits of faculty’s participation in university-industry collaboration has been put forward, enriching the theory of university-industry collaboration, providing scholars with new methods and theories to carry out research of University-Industry collaboration from the view of faculty; the influencing factors in faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration has been identified, enriching empirical study, offering possible ways to improve the performance of University-Industry collaboration, recognizing the relations between forms and benefits of faculty’s participation in University-Industry collaboration, providing new ideas for faculty to choose appropriate form; policies for promoting the faculty’s participation has been proposed, offering viable ideas and suggestions for government and educational institution to improve ideas and policies, and self-improvement of recognitions for individuals.