Research Policy 38 (2009) 1505–1516 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol Government centrality to university–industry interactions: University research centers and the industry involvement of academic researchers  P. Craig Boardman John Glenn School of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States article info Article history: Received 1 October 2008 Received in revised form 5 June 2009 Accepted 18 September 2009 Available online 14 October 2009 Keywords: University research centers University–industry interactions Research collaboration Institutional theory Resource-based view abstract This paper uses data from a national survey of academic researchers in the US to detect how different types of university research centers affect individual-level university–industry interactions. The results suggest that while affiliation with an industry-related center correlates positively with the likelihood of an academic researcher having had any research-related interactions with private companies, affiliation with centers sponsored by government centers programs correlates positively with the level of industry involvement, no matter whether these centers additionally have ties to private companies. The analysis takes the “scientific and technical human capital” approach, which draws from theories of social capi- tal and human capital and proves useful for framing the institutional and resource-based perspectives that characterize much of the literature on university–industry interactions. The scientific and technical human capital approach is taken because its emphasis on the research capacities of individual academic researchers provides a more direct explanation of government centrality to academic researchers’ indus- try involvement than provide either the resource-based or institutional views. Implications for policy and management as well as for future applications of the scientific and technical human capital approach are discussed. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Concern over US competitiveness in science and technology has seen an increase in the attention paid by government, universi- ties, and industry to the organization and context of academic research (National Academy of Sciences, 2007). This concern has elicited the establishment of new institutional structures to alter the norms (Etzkowitz, 1998) and boundaries (Sampat and Nelson, 2002; Owen-Smith, 2003) of the academy to facilitate technology transfer and other interactions between universities and indus- try (Bozeman, 2000). Among numerous government policies and industry initiatives, the US has seen the proliferation of university research centers focused on scientific and technical goals drawing on expertise from multiple science and engineering fields and facil- itating interactions across the sectors (Bozeman and Boardman, 2004).  This manuscript is based upon work supported by the National Science Foun- dation: “Assessing R&D Projects’ Impacts on Scientific and Technical Human Capital Development” (SBR 9818229). The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommen- dations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. E-mail address: boardman.10@osu.edu. University research centers vary substantially in terms of their organizational characteristics (Stahler and Tash, 1994). Given the current political and economic climate, perhaps the most important differences across centers have to do with how industry and/or gov- ernment coordinate university–industry interactions (Block and Miller, 2008). On one hand, there are centers sponsored by gov- ernment centers programs mandating industry partnerships; on the other hand, there are centers without programmatic sponsor- ship yet with direct ties to private companies, oftentimes entailing project-specific contracts (Lal et al., 2007). Additionally, there are numerous centers without formal industry ties, both with and without government centers program support, engaged in inter- disciplinary and problem-focused research and development that may be conducive to interactions with industry at the individual level (Boardman and Corley, 2008). Understanding how different types of university research centers affect university–industry interactions is imperative as gov- ernments and universities seek to become more strategic with regard to joint research and related interactions with industry (National Academy of Sciences, 2007). Though centers oftentimes generate industry-related outputs and outcomes (Gray et al., 2001; Feller et al., 2002; Santoro and Chakrabarti, 2002; Dietz and Bozeman, 2005), little is known about the extent to which cen- ter characteristics are related to differences in university–industry interactions – for instance in terms of the intensity (Schartinger et al., 2002) and character (Bhattacharya and Arora, 2007) of 0048-7333/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2009.09.008