What are the factors driving Academy-Industry linkages in Latecomer Firms: Evidence from Mexico DRAFT Arturo Torres (atorresv@correo.xoc.uam.mx), Gabriela Dutrénit (gdutrenit@laneta.apc.org), Jose L. Sampedro (sampedroh@yahoo.com.mx), Noé Becerra (berono@hotmail.com). All authors at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana- Xochimilco Mexico. 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Theoretical and empirical background......................................................................................... 2 3. Data and Methods ........................................................................................................................ 5 4. The Findings ................................................................................................................................. 7 5. Conclusions................................................................................................................................ 11 1. Introduction 1 It is now widely recognized that Universities can play a fundamental role on the performance of the firms’ innovation activities, because they are the main producers and transmitters of knowledge (Narin, Hamilton and Olivestro, 1997; Cohen, Nelson and Walsh, 2002; Arocena and Sutz, 2001). In the pursuit of innovation, firms interact with other organizations to gain, develop and exchange various kinds of knowledge, information and other resources (Edquist, 1997, 2001). In the context of the so called “Knowledge Based Economy”, the reliance of firms on knowledge built in the Universities has become even more important than in the past (Etzkowitz et al, 2000; Brundenius et al, 2008). A major reason for this is an enlargement in the complexity of production (Howells, 2000). So that, many governments of both, developed and developing countries have introduced an increasing range of policies encouraging the involvement of Higher Education Institutes and also Public Research Centers (HEI/PRC) in technology transfer to firms (D’Este and Patel, 2007; Arocena and Sutz, 2001). 1 This paper presents results of the international comparative project titled “Interactions between universities and firms: searching for paths to support the changing role of universities in the South“, developed under the umbrella of the Catching up project. It compares AIL of Latin‐ America, Asia and Africa. It is funded by IDRC. The support of CONACYT for one of the members of the Mexican team (project AC1 90908) is also acknowledged.