درباره تحول پژوهش بخش دولتی: ارزیابی اولیه پس از اس تی بی ال در تایوان

The paper examines the impact of the Science and Technology Basic Law (STBL) enactment of 1999 on the transformation of public sector research (PSR) in Taiwan. The paper proposes a research framework to assess the changes on PSR mainly through four dimensions: (1) new infrastructure build-up, (2) industrial research links, (3) patenting and licensing, and (4) industrial education/training. Nine research hypotheses are developed. Based on the survey data of 107 PSR establishments, the paper reveals that Taiwan PSR has experienced a burgeoning infrastructure build-up and a more active partnership with industry in the post-STBL period. However, the paper argues that the scientific–economic transformation of PSR in Taiwan tends to develop better “industrial collaborative research and training capabilities” than “patenting and licensing capabilities” in the preliminary post-STBL period. The divergence on patenting, licensing and partnership capabilities still persists between experienced PSREs and non-experienced ones, suggesting a learning effect. These findings provide crucial policy implications to delineate appropriate roles of PSR in the new scientific–economic regime.

In many countries, universities, non-profit research institutes (NPRIs) and government laboratories are regarded as the public sector research (PSR) undertaking government-funded research. The PSR forms one of the most important science and knowledge base in the national innovation system. In the rise of knowledge-based economy, a main concern of government today is how to make best use of the PSR knowledge base to foster innovation and economic competitiveness [1]. For governments, changing the structure and function of the PSR has become a crucial task to facilitate knowledge flows into new sources of industrial innovation [2]. In order to reap the economic contribution of PSR, various institutional and organizational innovations of PSR establishments (PSREs) have burgeoned such as devolution of intellectual property right (e.g., the US Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, Science and Technology Basic Law of the late 1990s in Japan, Korea and Taiwan), technology transfer offices, incubator facilities, increasing availability of venture capital and PSR spin-offs. It has been increasingly aware that PSR produces discoveries and inventions that immediately show the potential to be commercialised, especially the science-based technologies such as biotechnology and information and communication technologies [3], [4] and [5]. In the rising importance of PSR as sources of industrial innovation, many researchers have tried to assess the impacts of the Bayh–Dole Act on the changes of market-oriented research [6], university patenting and licensing [7] and [8], university spin-offs [9] and [10] and regional economy [11] and [12]. Research has been supported that Bayh–Dole Act has effectively stimulated the increase of technology transfer and commercialisation activities in PSR. Almost two decades later, Japan, Korea and Taiwan enacted the Science and Technology Basic Law (STBL) in the late 1990s to echo the Bayh–Dole Act of the US. However, little research attempts to systematically assess the impacts of STBL enactment on transformation of PSR in these countries. The paper sets out to bridge this gap, by paying special attention on the case of Taiwan. The paper starts with examining the STBL enactment and PSR in the Taiwanese innovation system in Section 2. Section 3 reviews the new “scientific–economic” regime of PSR occurring worldwide and Taiwan. The paper further develops a research framework to assess the transformation of PSR in Taiwan, The postal questionnaire exercise, statistic methods, and structural interviews are described in Section 4. The results of PSR engaged in the “scientific–economic” activities between pre- and post-STBL are shown in Section 5. The underlying factors for the results are discussed in Section 6. Finally, some conclusions and policy implications are made.

Inspired by the US Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, many Asian economies have gradually adopted Science and Technology Basic Law like Japan, Korea and Taiwan since the late 1990s. Through the STBL enactment, those STBL enacted countries hope they can leverage the knowledge base of PSR better. The study sheds some lights on the transformation of PSREs with four aspects of new infrastructure build-up, IP protection and exploitation, PSR–industry research links industrial education/training and, especially in Taiwan. The study reveals that the Taiwan PSREs overwhelmingly increased scientific–economic activities in all four aspects in the post-STBL period. However, overall PSREs statistically significantly increased only their PSR–industry research links and training/education program but not for IP protection and exploitation. In other words, the scientific–economic transformation of PSREs tends to develop better “industrial collaborative research and training” capabilities than “patenting and licensing” capabilities in the preliminary post-STBL period in Taiwan. We argue that it will be naïve to consider PSREs could master their IP protection and exploitation with such a short course. Moreover, the paper verifies that the ultimate goal of PSR IP exploitation is to facilitate PSR–industry technology transfer rather than focus on commercial profit only. The co-existence of IP protection and exploitation divergence and industry–PSR research links convergence in the Taiwanese PSREs suggests two messages. One is that universities and government labs still persistently lag behind the NPRIs in IP protection and exploitation. The other is that all types of PSREs increasingly compete in contract/collaborative research market and industrial training programs. Aligned with Georghiou [26], research convergence is emerging among various types of PSREs in Taiwan as well [26]. We also find that non-profit R&D institutions are the major and persistently active players in IP protection and exploitation among types of PSREs. However, colleges and non-experienced PSREs are vulnerable and most need from policy support in this transformation. Building regional IP protection centers could be an alternative to pool patents of vulnerable PSREs. By doing so, the centers can publicise the allied non-experienced and manage better IP portfolio with firms and other organizations in order to enjoy economy of scale and scope. Benchmarking studies on best practices of IP activities and research links provide a less experienced possibility to move down their learning curve quickly. The paper is a preliminary survey on PSR in Taiwan after STBL enactment. We conclude that the transformation of PSR towards a scientific–economic regime significantly facilitates PSR–industry research partnership and industrial education/training but not intellectual property exploitation yet. However, for PSREs engaging in IP exploitation and generating more spin-offs, the function of AUTM (Association of University's Technology Managers) in the North America should be established in Taiwan. A need of a periodic survey (e.g., every two years) in place is able to monitor the health of these PSREs. Decentralised governance could encourage more entrepreneurial activities in the PSR context such as flexible licensing arrangement, establishment of research venture funds, permission of equity participation in spin-offs and researcher entrepreneurial leave. PSREs need better intellectual property right infrastructure build-up, academic entrepreneurship, and internalising commercial capabilities to cope with their new economic remit in the newly STBL countries such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan and other countries dedicating to PSR transformation. Finally, bearing in mind, it is crucial to monitor and alleviate the side effects (e.g., limited knowledge access, innovation delay, short-term research orientation and increasing research dependence on industry) in the course of promoting the scientific–economic endeavour in PSR [19].