A Journal of University-Industry-Government Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Table 8 Organizational characteristics of university-region joint research institutes and university-enterprise joint research centers
Dimensions | Description | |
|---|---|---|
The Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Beijing | Tsinghua-BP Clean Energy Research and Education Center | |
1. Degree of disciplinary specialization | Discipline integrated: its services are for all possible needs of university-industry technology transfer in Beijing. | Discipline specialized: it is specialized in energy technology, energy system, and strategy and policy analysis. |
2. Degree of task specialization | Fully integrated: the tasks include R&D, high-tech firms’ incubation, innovation capacity development for local firms, and regional innovation context improvement. | Backward integrated: the tasks are to conduct R&D projects for the enterprises and even the government, particularly for improving the energy efficiency of coal power plants and the sustainable energy development in China. |
3. Level of autonomy | Semi-dependent: it is a public institution but enjoys certain level of autonomy. It is under the joint administration of Tsinghua University and Beijing Municipal government. | Dependent: it invested one-time with 0.4 million dollars of its creation as an independent research institution in Tsinghua. There are agreements between the two collaborations while obeying the rules of university-industry technology transfer in Tsinghua in general. |
4. Degree of exclusivity | Non-exclusive: it is now serving as a platform to address technology transfer problems for both public and private organizations beyond the Tsinghua University. | Exclusive: it focuses on utilizing relevant research outputs of Tsinghua University to resolve technological challenges of the cooperating enterprise. |
5. Professionalization | High level: it employs professional staffs for its operation, including technology transfer specialists and intellectual property managers. | Low level: the team members are organized by professors and faculties, who have less experience in university-industry technology transfer |
6. Standardization | High level: 5 functional departments in the Joint Research Institute are responsible for project management, innovation services, investment, and education training, guided by clear regulation of the Institute. | High level: its operations are in accordance with the general regulations of Tsinghua for jointly research institutions with enterprises. |