The funnel model of firms’ R&D cooperation with universities

This article explores the determinants of firms’ R&D cooperation with research groups understanding university–industry cooperation as a sequential process. In so doing, we study the determinants of both firms’ interest in and decision to engage in cooperation agreements. We applied both probit models and regression models for count data on a sample of 375 firms from Spain, Portugal, and France. Although most of these firms showed interest in collaborating with universities, actually only 10 per cent of the firms ended up cooperating with them. Our findings firstly indicate that innovative firms tend to show a more proactive attitude towards R&D collaboration. Secondly, within the group of firms interested in R&D collaboration, the firms really involved are the independent or small firms, and we also provide evidence that country factors affect firms’ R&D cooperation with universities.