The effects of university-industry collaboration subsidies on firm performance

Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 14/24

Date: December 2024

Author(s):

Elizabeth Webster
Alfons Palangkaraya
Paul H. Jensen
Russell Thomson

Abstract

We quantify how competitive funding programs that promote university-industry (U-I) research partnerships affect firm performance. To do this, we estimate staggered difference-in-difference models using data from more than 5,000 funded and unfunded Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant applications from 2002 until 2015. Our results show grant funding led to a 12 percent increase in employment over a five-year period with both employment and turnover trending upward relative to untreated firms over our five-year post-treatment window.

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