Analysis of the universities’ participation in the innovation networks

In autumn 2016, Oxford Research and Iris Group, on behalf of the Board of Research and Education, conducted an analysis of the universities’ participation in the innovation networks. The analysis highlights both beneficial effects and various barriers, as you can read much more about here.

Innovation Network The Denmark program consists of 22 national innovation networks that have Grant until mid 2018. The next call for the program will start in early 2017 with a view to this to allocate new appropriations from mid 2018. As part of the preparations for the new round of procurement FI has wanted to carry out an analysis of the extent and nature of the universities and researchers Participation in the Danish innovation networks. The analysis focuses in particular on:
 map the universities’ involvement and commitment in the innovation networks
 Assess the university’s benefit from participating in the innovation networks
 Provide input to how the universities engage in and benefit from the innovation networks can be strengthened.

The analysis is based on desk research on the innovation networks, questionnaire surveys for network managers And university representatives who participate in networks and interview with network managers, Researchers and experts. An important element in the analysis and in the understanding of the results is thus the analysis Alone has focused on the universities’ participation in and benefits from the innovation networks and not on To assess the overall functionality of innovation networks and socioeconomic value creation.

There was a huge participation and high involvement from universities and researchers in the networks Overall, the analysis gives a relatively positive picture of the universities’ participation in the innovation networks. The analysis thus shows that there is both a relatively wide participation of universities and researchers In the innovation networks, and that researchers are often engaged and actively participate.

Briefly summarized the analysis shows that:

 All networks have at least one university, and all universities participate in at least three network.

 There are a total of 102 written cooperation agreements between universities and the innovation networks.

 Over 80% of the networks have researchers in all or many of their activities.

 Nearly 80% of network managers experience the commitment of researchers and university representatives is high or very high, and about 50% of researchers and university representatives Consider yourself that their commitment is high or very high.

From the interviews with network managers it also appears that the networks generally do not experience having Pronounced challenges of engaging researchers and other representatives from universities. likewise 2 University participation in Innovation Network Denmark program The questionnaire surveys show that the researchers generally have an active role in the networks and most often Both participate in and initiate activity