The patterns of industryuniversity- government collaboration in photovoltaic technology

This research aims to understand the patterns of the Industry-University-Government (IUG) collaboration relationship. The degree of the involvement of the three sections in photovoltaic technology is observed from the co-authored patents on I-U-G collaboration retrieved from USPTO database between 2002 and 2011. This study hopes to determine the linkage between technical development and potential matches for institutional collaborations. The researcher first analyses and compares the number of co-authored patents and the share of patents contributed by each I-U-G sectors. Next, to understand how the institution, the university and the government participated in the development of photovoltaic technology, the study identifies the number of patents co-authored by two of the I-U-G sectors and the percentages of the co-authored patents over the total. Lastly, the main participants in U-I, U-G, and I-G collaborations are identified through close examination of co-authored patents on photovoltaic technology. The results reveal that industry has the highest shares both in the number of patents and of participating institutions; however, the percentage in co-authored patents of the industry is the lowest. On the other hand, the university has the highest shares of co-authored patents and of participating institutions. © AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH Vienna 2013.