The Effect of Research Funds from Industry on Faculties' Publication Productivity

―A case of Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University―

Abstract

Previous studies in Western countries show that the effects of research funds from industry have positive effects on faculties' publications. However, in Japan such research has been very limited due mainly to the difficulty of data collection of each faculty's received research funds.

In this study the effect of research funds from industry on faculties' publications was empirically examined by using a ten-year longitudinal data of faculties at the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University. The result shows that annual research funds from industry more than 10 million and less than or equal to 100 million Japanese Yen have a positive effect on faculties' publications with three-year time lag. This finding implies that a large-scale university-industry collaboration (UIC) contributes to the academic publication productivity of the faculties involved in UIC.