University–industry collaboration and university technology license: the moderating effects of market and R&D strength

This paper explores whether university–industry collaboration can facilitate university technology license with the moderating effects of external and internal environments. Here, the university technology license is measured by the license of university non-collaborative-patent. We set up panel data during 2010–2016 of 118 top universities in China and adopted negative binomial regression for empirical analysis. Results show that university–industry collaboration is positively related to non-collaborative-patent license and market for technology has no moderating effect while the R&D strength can moderate the relationship. Specifically, funding has a positive effect on non-collaborative-patent license while research full-time equivalent of R&D personnel negatively moderates the relationship between collaboration and non-collaborative-patent license. This paper creates a new direction to study influencing factors of university technology license from the perspective of collaborators and environment and verified the driving effect of university–industry collaboration on university technology license. Moreover, it sheds light on theoretical streams of university technology license in developing countries.