The Augustin Cournot Doctoral School (University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg) () offers 4 PhD grants in the fields of economics, management and science-technology-society:

-3 doctoral fellowships on any topic (see below)

-1 doctoral fellowship on a specific topic (see below)

  • Formes institutionnelles de la recherche et production scientifique: une comparaison Franco Allemande - CNRS/MPG(Institutional frames for research and scientific production: A French-German comparison between CNRS and MPG)

See details on the following web site:

Application procedure

Application deadline: June 30th, 2008

Application documents:

-a detailed CV (in French and/or English)

-a research project (2 pages)

-if the research memoir / essay (“Research Master”) has not been defended yet or the placement not completed (“Professional Master”), the applicants must provide some information on the implementation stage of their memoir or placement report

-a letter of support (to be sent to the Doctoral school directly).

Application to be sent to:

Patrick Llerena, Ecole doctorale ‘A Cournot’, 61 avenue de la Forêt Noire, 67000 Strasbourg, France

Email: and

Calendar:

-Application deadline: June 30th, 2008

- Short list: Mid-July

-Interviews of short listed applicants: September 8th or 9th, 2008 (the interview consists in a presentation by the applicant of his/her research memoir or a research paper (15mn) followed by a discussion with the selection committee

-Final decision on September 10th, 2008 at the latest

For further scholarships check the web site of the doctoral school:

Call for a dedicated doctoral scholarship on a specific topic:

Institutional frames for research and scientific production: A French-German comparison between CNRS and MPG

Doctoral school ‘Augustin Cournot’, ED 221, ULP, Strasbourg 1

Host research unit: BETA (UMR 7522, ULP-Nancy-CNRS)

Topic rationale:

The research project aims at studying the volume, determinants and the evolution of technology transfer activities seen through patenting and licensing to outsiders or through the creation of spin offs, based on a comparative survey between the French CNRS and the German Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. This study should hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the transfer process, which has so far mainly been studied in American universities (USA), whereas non-American and non-university (non-academic) institutions have been rather neglected.

The objective of the project is not a comparative assessment of transfer activities of both institutions. Its aim is to study in a comparative way the influence of institutional frames, of the types of resources, of the practices of transfer offices as well as of the transfer culture at national level as well as at the level of the institutions on the transfer processes and their success.

-The teams (at BETA and MPI-ECON) have direct access to the institutional data of both institutions, which makes the project feasible and convincing

-Both teams are already partners within the LEA-KSI (Knowledge, Science and Innovation), together with FhG-ISI: ) and within a European Network of Excellence, called DIME (‘Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe’; )

Institutional frames for research and scientific production: A French-German comparison between CNRS and MPI

Doctoral school Augustin Cournot, ED 221, ULP, Strasbourg 1

Host research unit: BETA (UMR 7522, ULP-Nancy-CNRS)

Joint supervision: P. Llerena (BETA) and G. Bünstorf (MPE- MPI, Jena)

Host institution: BETA-ULP, Strasbourg

The context

Beside research and teaching, transfer of knowledge and technologies towards the private sector for application purposes has become in recent years a recognised part of the tasks of public research. This evolution was expressed in legislative texts such as the Bayh-Dole Act in the United States and in Germany in the abolition of the privilege granted to university teachers as well as the promotion of technology transfer offices. Within the European context, the so-called “European paradox” is often mentioned in this respect: its assumption is that European research produces very high quality results which are not sufficiently transferred into research and development activities of the private sector. With the “Lisbon strategy”, the European Union has considered that one of its aims should be to improve its technological performances and important public means have been made available to reach that aim. Patent applications (patenting) to protect inventions by staff members of universities and public research institutions, as well as the granting of licenses to firms and spin offs constitute central technology transfer mechanisms. Moreover they provide institutions with an additional source of income.

Together with the growing interest of public authorities for technology transfer of results of public research, one can observe an increasing interest for the processes and success factors of technology transfer. In particular the role of various transfer mechanisms (Bozeman, 2000; Agarwal and Henderson, 2002) and the basic difficulties connected with licensing of university technologies have been extensively studied, including the first development stage which often requires collaborating with the academic inventor after the licensing agreement has been signed (Jensen and Thursby, 2001; Agrawal, 2006). Further works focus on the impact of institutional changes, mainly the Bay-Dole Act, on the growing patenting by universities (Henderson et al., 1998; Mowery et al., 2001).

From the point of view of technology transfer as well as from the point of view of the literature on entrepreneurship, spin offs are a rewarding research topic. A priori it is not obvious that for spin offs to have a detailed knowledge of technologies adds to the probability to reach the market compared to an external license or that the disadvantages resulting from the lack of access to additional resources override this effect (Teece, 1986). Empirical results are not unanimous (Shane, 2002; Lowe and Ziedonis, 2006).

The possible impact of technology transfer on research performances has attracted much scientific attention. There are almost continuously empirical studies which conclude at the level of the individual researcher that there is a positive relation between the invention activity and the capability to publish (Markiewicz and DiMinin, 2004; Stepahan et al., 2005; Breschi et al., 2005; Azoulay et al., 2006). On the other hand the impact of institutional conditions on the performances of public research are debatable. Murray and Stern (2005) and Sampat (2006) show that the appropriation of the tools which are relevant for research purposes (e.g. genome sequences and genetically modified organisms) has a systematic negative impact – even it is a limited one – on the rate of citations of the scientific publications which refer to them.

Finally the possible impact of higher self-financing by research institutions through technology transfer raises critical discussions. Data available for assessing the results of valorisation by scientific institutions show that most inventors generate profits which are hardly sufficient to cover their costs, whereas the largest income usually comes from a very small number of inventions. Considering the very uneven distribution of license revenues, one should expect increased differences in the financial endowment and hence in the performances of European universities (Geuna and Nesta, 2006).

Notwithstanding recent works, there is still a pressing need for studies on technology transfer from public research. Whenever quantitative data are available, existing studies focus on American universities. Because of this focus on American universities, the question is still open to what extent these results can be extended to Europe with its different research cultures, resulting from history and institutional frames. A study of European institutions, which is foreseen in the present project, would make it possible to show whether the differences between Europe and the United States in terms of technology transfer are really what they are usually assumed to be. Considering in particular the attention devoted to the Unites States where universities have a rather more important position than in Europe, transfer conditions from non-university institutions are less often studied.

Objectives

The project aims at studying the volume, determinants and evolution of technology transfer activities through patenting, licensing to outsiders or spin offs, based on a comparative survey of the French CNRS and the German Max-Planck Gesellschaft. This should hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the transfer process which has so far focussed on American universities (USA), whereas non-American and non-university (non-academic) institutions have only rarely been studied.

The project does not aim at providing a comparative assessment of transfer activities in both institutions. Through a comparative approach, it will try and study the influence on transfer processes and success of institutional conditions, of resource types, of practices of transfer offices and of the transfer culture at national level and at the level of the organisation. During the period under study both institutions have experienced changes in the attitudes towards some transfer activities and action means of transfer offices. For example the Max Planck Gesellschaft started to support spin offs actively in 1990. At CNRS, the implementation of the new law on innovation in 1999 modified the policy toward intellectual property management. The impact of such changes is easier to assess through a comparison of the evolution of the other institution. Both institutions are organised in rather independent and geographically defined units. This makes it possible to assess the significance of institutional and cultural differences within the institutions.

The project, which focuses on France and Germany covers the two most important European economies. The selected institutions are in both countries the largest institutions for non-university, interdisciplinary fundamental public research. Whereas it is very difficult to avail of long term electronic data for European universities, both CNRS and MPG have long term series. Hence these institutions offer an ideal situation for the proposed topic. Both developed in the past contacts between their transfer offices and a large part of the necessary data are already available.

Beyond its scientific interest, the project should propose conclusions for research policy, especially on the appropriate conditions for technology transfer from public research.

It should be noted that:

-The teams (at BETA and MPI-ECON) have direct access to the institutional data of both institutions, which makes the project feasible and convincing

-Both teams are already partners within the LEA-KSI (Knowledge, Science and Innovation), together with FhG-ISI: and within a European Network of Excellence, called DIME (‘Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe’;