Universities in emerging economies: bridging local industry with international science--evidence from Chile and South Africa

Emerging economies are becoming more important in global competition based on their investments in knowledge. Universities are playing a role in this transformation, both as generators of new knowledge and agents that can interact with the local industry and contribute to its innovativeness. This paper uses two case studies in the Chilean and South African wine industry to explore how universities transfer international science to domestic industry. This is achieved through the activities of a few ‘bridging researchers’, who have rather particular characteristics. Bridging researchers are more ‘talented’ than the average researcher based on a higher number of publications in international journals and/or awards received for academic work. This finding has significant policy implications; catching up countries keen to develop a ‘knowledge economy’ should focus on strengthening and exploiting the skills of these excellent researchers to improve the production and innovativeness of their industries.