This work explores the role of university department characteristics in academic engagement with industry. In particular, we investigate the role played by research quality and previous experience in academic engagement across different scientific disciplines. We test our hypotheses on a dataset of public sponsored university-industry partnerships in the United Kingdom, combined with data from the UK Research Assessment Exercises 2001 and 2008. Our analysis reveals a negative link between academic quality and the level of engagement with industry for departments in the basic sciences and a positive relationship for departments in the applied sciences. Our results further show that the role of research quality for academic engagement strictly depends on the level of the department’s previous experience in university-industry partnerships, notably in the basic sciences, where experience acts as a moderating factor. The findings of this work are highly relevant for policy makers and university managers and contribute to the innovation literature focused on the investigation of the determinants of valuable knowledge transfer practices in academia.

这项工作探讨了大学院系特征在与行业的学术接触中的作用。特别是，我们调查了研究质量和以前的经验在不同科学学科的学术参与中所扮演的角色。我们在英国公共资助的大学-产业伙伴关系数据集上测试我们的假设，并结合 2001 年和 2008 年英国研究评估练习的数据。我们的分析揭示了学术质量与部门与行业的参与水平之间存在负相关在基础科学和应用科学部门的积极关系。我们的结果进一步表明，研究质量对学术参与的作用严格取决于该系以前在大学与产业合作中的经验水平，尤其是在基础科学领域，经验是一个调节因素。这项工作的发现与政策制定者和大学管理者高度相关，并有助于创新文献，这些文献侧重于研究学术界有价值的知识转移实践的决定因素。