Composition of inventor teams and technological progress - the role of collaboration between academia and industry

It is generally claimed that universities provide the scientific basis for future technological progress. Still,empirical evidence ofthe impact of direct links between universities and firms remains weak and isoften inconsistent. This paper aims at contributing to the literature by analyzing how direct academicinvolvement affects the output of inventive activities of research teams with different organizationalbackgrounds. By applying a unique dataset of German academic and corporate patents, wefind thatboundary-spanning knowledge production with academic inventors raises the innovative performanceof SMEs and MNEs. Finally, in line with previous research, the results generally indicate a limiting effectof geographical proximity, while teams with academic involvement appear to be less affected.