Is really beneficial for firms to cooperate with Universities? Scientific cooperation and firms' performance: the Italian case

Industry-university collaborations can be beneficial for both partners. For example, universities can enhance their scientific impact by reinforcing collaborations with the industrial sector. Similarly firms, through close cooperation with universities, can develop innovative ideas leading to more marketable outputs. The notion of innovation interactions is reflected in many modern theories. Networking can be a complementary factor in situation where cooperation is needed to achieve economies of scale and/or to merge and integrate different skills, technologies and competencies. The requirement of SME to collaborate has dominated much of the academic debate. In recent works, complementarities are analysed and it is shown that there are different factors affecting firms’ performance such as technological innovation, and R&D. Based on a survey of 1120 Italian firms, the aim of this paper is to empirically analyse the role of Universities in increasing firms’ product innovations and performance.