Abstract 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.
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