Collaboration and commercialisation in a multi faculty
university, interfaculty differences?

* PhD Candidate Maria Ljunggren, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, The RoyalInstitute of Technology

PhD Richard Odegrip, Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology, Stockholm
University

PhD Thomas Arctaedius, SU Holding, Stockholm University* Corresponding author.

1

Abstract
Prominent research has focused on knowledge transfer and its change through the last decades,from international comparative approaches to relationships between public research organisations
and the surrounding society. Within the academia, collaboration have mostly concerned naturalsciences, engineering and technology, and researchers from such disciplines generally possess amore positive attitude to collaboration activities. In our study we aim to add to the research on
collaboration between academia and industry through a quantitative analysis of attitudes tocollaboration and commercialisation and level of collaboration activity among researchers fromthe faculties of humanities, social science, and natural science within a multi faculty university.
In accordance with previous studies, the results demonstrate for example, that professors, andresearchers with a high number of scientific publications, and researchers from natural science
have a more positive attitude towards collaboration. However, researchers from social science are
significantly more engaged in collaboration and commercialisation activities than naturalscientist. We conclude that the attitude to collaboration and actual participation in collaborationand commercialisation activities not necessarily correlates.

Keywords: Collaboration, Commercialisation, Social science, Natural science, Humanities,
Attitudes, Publishing activity, Social capital.

2

1. INTRODUCTION
The significance of being part of an attractive national and international network has been widely
acknowledged and increased the pressure for universities to become more entrepreneurial, andinteract with the regional community and economy (Lundvall 1996, Clark 1998). Still, therelation between basic research or non-applied research and the innovation process is complex
and a field of innovation studies has emerged (Fagerberg and Verspagen 2009). Researchers havedeveloped concepts of inter-firm and public-private collaboration analysing collaboration
between different actors through the regional and proximity aspect for innovation systems(Freeman 1987), regional innovation systems (Doloreux & Parto 2004), national innovation
system (Arundel & Geuna 2004), and clusters (Porter 1990).

The innovation process has also been analysed through the linear model, which emphasised astraight innovation process, starting with the basic research and finalising with the innovation at
the market. This simplified model of innovation has been criticised and a developed model
followed indicating that researchers were interlinked in a more circular and fruitful interactive
fashion also focusing on the firm’s needs and demands, learning process, as well as theirabsorptive capacity, referred to as the chain-linked model (Cohen and Levinthal 1990, Rosenberg
1990, Kline & Rosenberg 1986). Triple helix and Mode 2 are further concepts that originate fromthe increasing emphasis on a circular interaction between the academia, the industry as well as
the public sector (Gibbons et al. 1994, Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff 2000). The significance forinteraction in the innovation process creates a challenge for inter-organisational networks and aneed for developing trust between the actors. An emphasis on social capital building can function
as the base for establishing trust within increasing dense networks inside and between the public
and private sectors as well as for inter-firm relations and interactive learning (Wolfe 2002).
Maskell (2000) connects social capital to both internal knowledge production and knowledge
exchange, suggesting that knowledge exchange between firms results in more production related
links and is directly linked to organisations’ innovation capabilities. A well established social
capital decreases expenses and reduces time devoted to knowledge exchange between
organisations.

The building of social capital that supports dense networks of inter-organisational relations and3the process of interactive learning also becomes an individual benefit or resource as described by
Bourdieu (1986). It involves an emphasis on individuals sharing of social ties to advance thecreation of effective norms and facilitate action. A norm, in terms of social capital building,
functions as investments, which together with information sharing and trust are significant
foundations for individuals when being admitted into a group’s social capital. (Burt 1992, 2000,
Coleman 1990).

1.1 Conceptual framework
Westlund (2003) explains social capital as the social non-formalised networks that are used by
the networks nodes/actors to distribute norms, values, preferences and other social attributes andcharacteristics. He relates former mentioned attributes to the higher education institutions anddivide social (HEI) into external and internal social capital. The internal social capitalencapsulates individuals’ networks and traditional norms, for example illustrated in the academic
peer-review process. The external social capital is better explained in relation to the developmentof collaboration with the surrounding society meaning that HEIs experience an increasing
significance for university staffs’ external contacts with, for instance, external financiers, andregional firms. The development of such type of contacts indicates the HEIs ability to build andestablish external social capital (Westlund 2003). Consequently it is relevant to include both typeof social capital when discussing social capital development among academics within the HEI(Westlund 2009).

To form a base for a collaboration climate, the structure of internal incentives and traditions, theinternal social capital, should interrelate with the building of external social capital. Suggestively,changes in internal social capital can only come about if it is to the advantage of teachers andresearchers within the HEI. If collaboration with other parts of society should mean, for example,
better salaries, more research funds, and academic qualifications, it is probable that changed
attitudes would lead to a greater interest in building links to stakeholders outside HEIs. So far,only a few studies on attitudes and relations in Swedish universities and their importance forbuilding external links and relations have been made (Wahlbin & Wigren 2007, Johansson &Westlund 2008). In this respect research on companies is much more advanced than research on
universities.

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1.2 Main proposition
In this article the definition of social capital builds on the definition proposed by Westlund (2009)that emphasises the actual use of social capital between the nodes/actors to distribute norms,
values, preferences and other social attributes and characteristics. It is also significant to bear inmind that networks are purely social and non-formalised. Our analysis focuses on the university
participation level in collaboration activities and attitude to establish external social capitalthrough collaboration. We have chosen to analyse all faculties at the University, which allows for
a comparison between faculties level of collaboration work as well as the difference between
academic ranks. We aim to present the results of a survey including researchers from social
science, natural science and the humanities at a multi faculty university. The purpose is to analyse
whether there is a difference between faculties in terms of individual researchers’ attitude tocollaboration and participation in collaboration activities including activities relating tocommercialisation of research. We believe that participation in collaboration activities andattitude to collaboration both relates to the internal social capital that emphasise norms andattitudes within an academic group and the external social capital in terms of relations with theexternal partners. The participation in collaboration activities and a positive attitude tocollaboration suggestively imply a link between internal and external social capital building on an
individual level.

2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH
In the following section we aim to present previous research in relation to our three areas ofinterest, collaboration activities, attitudes to collaboration and commercialisation. Collaboration
between HEI and surrounding environment have been undertaken by several prominent
researchers but there is still a lack of research relating collaboration to the building of internaland external social capital.

Collaboration projects encapsulate several levels of interest. For example, previous research on
researchers’ and company representatives’ motivations for participating in industry-academia
collaboration indicate that researchers’ reason for collaborating often lies in the interest in
evaluating applications for basic research, while industry representatives are motivated by5

production development (Lee 2005, Bodas-Freitas & Verspagen 2009). Furthermore,collaboration occurring within education most often focuses on master theses. For example,
Bodas-Freitas & Verspagen (2009) argue that collaboration projects focusing on master theses in
the industry are a much stronger instrument for promoting collaboration than policy makers
previously believed. Previous research also indicates that researchers involved in industry
collaboration are more prone to publish scientifically, which indicates that collaborative andscientific publishing are mutually beneficial rather than mutually exclusive (McKelvey et al.
2008, Wahlbin & Wigren 2007, Gulbrandsen & Smeby 2005, Balconi & Laboranti 2006). Kyvik(2005) also found that highly productive researchers also publish more popular scientific researchand that the social sciences and the humanities are more active in the public debate and popular
writing than researchers from the faculties of medicine, technology and natural science.

To foster successful collaboration there is a need to acknowledge the organisational andinstitutional norms, such as culture and policies. Lee (1996) argued that university
representatives’ view on collaboration mainly consist of two significant factors, the need forfunding from the industry and an implied fear of losing the academic freedom. However, research
indicates that the researchers experience and view on collaboration and commercialisation ismore complex than that. Bok (2003) observed that academics were concerned that a close
university and industry collaboration would have a negative effect on academic integrity andacademic freedom in terms of focusing on short-term research results and (see also Witt et al.
1994, Blumenthal, et al.1986). Lee (1996) illustrated that opinions on academic freedom indeed
were divided but most faculty seemed certain that university and industry collaboration was
likely to increase the pressure for short-term research inevitably affecting long-term basic
research. D’Este & Perkmann (2010) studied academics from the engineering and physicalsciences and suggest that most academics engage with industry focused on improving theirresearch rather than on the potential momentary values that would come with commercialising
their research. This result did change in terms of terms of the channels of engagement.
As presented, the tradition and attitude to collaborate differs between faculties and not allacademics are involved in collaboration activities (Geuna & Muscio 2008, Blumenthal etal.1996). Blumenthal et al. (1996) found that faculty with an industry support still produced
equally academically in similarity with the staff having no industry support, one difference6was that the groups with industry support tended to a higher extent look for commercial
potential in their research. Behrens and Gray (2001) studied graduate students experience of
academic freedom when being funded by the industry. They found that the differences wereminor and related to structural aspects of student’s research involvement rather than what thestudents experienced and potential outcomes of the collaboration.

Castro et al (2008) argued the transfer process to be different for researchers from thehumanities and the social sciences having a focus on the public use of their research whereas
engineering and natural science tailor collaboration towards commercialisation (McKelvey etal. 2008). Researchers from life science and biotechnology have demonstrated to be bothcommercially active and academically productive (Zinner et al. 2009, Blumenthal et al.
1986). In line with previous mentioned results, a study of academics from India and the US
level of support for collaboration illustrated that researchers from the engineering disciplines
and applied sciences tended to be more in favour of collaboration such as commercialisationof research and consultancy, than researchers from the other faculties (Nagpaul 2000, Lee1996). Swedish researchers from the natural sciences and engineering have also expressed apositive attitude to creation of new business and patents, which also positively correlateswith their level of collaboration and scientific publishing (McKelvey et al. 2008). Anotherfinding from a Canada is that collaboration in general appear to be of little interest to
researchers within the social sciences, humanities and arts although, senior researchers fromthe humanities and social sciences indicated a more positive attitude to collaboration thanresearchers in the beginning of their career (Langford et al. 2009).

Clark (1998) discussed organisational change from the universities perspective and argued thatthe change was concerned with the remains of their marginality and excellence when adapting tochanging and expanding demands to become more commercial. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004)
described HEIs process to integrate in the new knowledge economy referred to as academic
capitalism. The concept of academic capitalism suggests that different groups of actors within the
HEI create new circuits of knowledge to link HEI with society. However, the faculties involved
with the market also expressed an uncertainty of the boundaries between the public and theprivate spheres, which created a conflict of interest.

7

However, the term commercialisation does not only signify activities intending to bringcommercial use to research but also includes activities that embrace spreading research to theregional community with a more entrepreneurial attitude and socio-economic value. Lee (1996)
found that a great majority of researchers thought that the university should offer a proper
infrastructure for supporting commercialisation of research and encourage researchers to be
active as consultants for private industry. According to Geiger (1993), academics should reevaluate their focus on basic research and envelope applied research as an opportunity forincreasing public good and regional growth, which would allow academics to participate more in
the commercialisation of research, consulting, and entrepreneurial activities. However, thepressure for commercialisation of research must not neglect the significance for a continuing
development of basic research with high level of academic freedom (Pavitt 2001). The increasingpressure for HEIs to become more entrepreneurial also equalise a need for several types ofresearch financiers (Clark 1998).

The activities included in our study involve collaboration with external actors outside the HEI
and add to previous research through emphasising several different collaborative activities within
three different faculties’ social science, humanities, and natural science. Our study measuresindividual researchers’ attitudes to commercialisation and collaboration in terms of their attitude
to academic freedom, the experienced impact collaboration have on their academic career and thedegree of support for collaboration they experience at an institutional level. The focus is onindividual researchers’ experience of organising workshops including both the industry and theacademy, master theses, participating in boards and consultant work for organisations outside theacademia, as well as publishing for the general public.
We believe that researchers’ attitudes to collaboration differ between faculties and academic rankcorresponding to their previous tradition and experience of collaboration and commercialisationand participation in such activities. Researchers from faculties with a modest tradition ofcollaboration such as the humanities and social sciences are believed to engage less incollaborative activities and commercialisation than natural sciences with a more profoundtradition for collaboration. Since previous research illustrate that the faculty of natural science8and professors participates in collaboration activities to a greater extent, we also expected them topossess a more positive attitude to collaboration and commercialisation activities with a greaterinternal social capital and focus on building external social capital. We further believe that thenatural science faculty commercialises to a greater extent, and that the researchers are more prone
to find more commercial value in their research. To test to what extent our beliefs are correct, anumber of hypotheses have been generated from the theoretical framework of this paper:

Table 1. Questionnaire questions and alternative hypothesis
Questions

Alternative hypothesis H1

QJA1. Have you participated in research projects during 2008 Professors and natural scientists have been participating to a larger
where the organisation funding the research has promoted

extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from theparticipation with an organisation (such as a company or local social sciences and humanities.
authority) other than the University or another institute ofeducation?
QJA2. Have you published a scientific publication during

Professors and natural scientists have been co-authoring to a larger

2008 that was co-authored with someone not employed by the extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from the
University or another institute of higher education?

social sciences and humanities.

QJA3. Have you worked as an advisor/consultant for an

Professors and natural scientists have been working as anorganisation other than the University or another institute ofadvisor/consultant to a larger extent than researchers from otherhigher education during 2008?

groups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

QJA4. Have you held a directorship on a board apart from the Professors and natural scientists have held directorship to a larger
University or another institute of higher education during 2008 extent than researchers from other groups and researchers from the(other than local associations, tenant-owner associations orsocial sciences and humanities.

similar)?
QJA5. Have you arranged assignments for and/or supervised

Professors and natural scientists have been arranging andstudents who have resolved problems for companies or public supervised students to a larger extent than researchers from othersector organisations during 2008 – in the form of projects,

groups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

papers, theses, etc?
QJA7. I consider that increased collaboration by Stockholm

Professors and researchers from natural sciences believe that

University would: 1 (substantially restrict academic freedom)

increased collaboration would substantially increase academic– 7 (substantially increase academic freedom).

freedom.

QJA8. At my place of work/institution within Stockholm

Professors and researchers from natural sciences experience a keen

University there is: 1 (no support for collaboration) – 7 (keensupport for collaboration.

support for collaboration that can offer greater resources).
QJA9. Where I work within Stockholm University,

Professors and researchers from natural sciences believe thatcommitment to collaboration has: 1 (a highly negative impact

increased collaboration have a highly favourable impact on one’s

on one's academic career) – 7 (a highly favourable impact onacademic career.

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one's academic career).
QJA10. Have you conducted any business activities in

Professors and natural scientists have been conducting businesscompanies that you own wholly or partially?

activities to a larger extent than researchers from other groups andresearchers from the social sciences and humanities.

QJA11. Was the business idea related to your own research

Professors and natural scientists connect their research tofinding?

commercialization to a larger extent than researchers from othergroups and researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

3. METHOD AND DATA
During the last decade, universities have demonstrated a good will to develop a flexible
infrastructure to enhance collaboration. Stockholm University is an example of a university
with a large research volume and it provides an excellent opportunity for analysing multifaculty collaboration with the four faculties: natural sciences, humanities, and social
sciences. The faculties of social sciences and humanities are the largest in Sweden. 2006 a
new unit for collaboration support and innovation, and an incubator were established in orderto develop the central infrastructure for collaboration and commercialisation of research. In
our study we have not tried to separate between basic research and applied research

Our case is built on data drawn from a web-based survey conducted among all faculty membersof researchers, i.e. teachers, and postgraduate students, totalling approximately 3200 respondents.
Only employees working no less than 40% were asked to complete the survey. At the closure of
the survey there were 1469 replies (N = 1469), corresponding to a reply frequency of 46%
percent, failed addresses excluded. The response rate was slightly higher in natural sciences (50percent) than in the humanities and social sciences (46 percent). The faculty of law and crossdisciplinary centres was excluded from the data due to being merely 37 respectively 22 of the
respondents. Moreover, the response rate among professors (62 percent) and PhD students (60percent) were higher than among the other groups. The variation in response rate relating toacademic rank results in a limitation when analysing research assistants, assistants, lecturers,
docents, and fellows participation in collaboration activities. The questionnaire also included the
independent variables, academic credentials (doctorate, licentiate, first degree), number of
popular scientific publications (0 publications, 1-3 publications, 4-6 publications, more than 7
publications), and number of scientific publications (0 publications, 1-3 publications, 4-6

10

publications, more than 7 publications). However, these were taken out from the analysis due tous wanting to focus purely on faculty and academic rank. The reason for these groups having a
low response rate is not clear but it could possibly be that they are less active in research andmore focused on teaching. There were no significant differences in the response rate between
men and women and age of respondents, which is the reason why we have not differed between
men and women in the analysis. Our results are useful for comparative studies on thedevelopment of collaboration and commercialisation infrastructure in similar HEI.

To narrow down the definition of collaboration, we have focused on collaboration activities that
we believe enhance the external social capital, individual board membership outside the HEI or
another HEI, functioning as an advisory or consultant outside the HEI or with another HEI,
participating in projects where the funding agency implied collaboration with an external part,co-authoring with an external part outside the HEI, arranging assignments for and/or supervised
students who have resolved problems for companies or public sector organisations, andparticipating in commissioned education.
We used a chi square test for analysing the data considering our data was both categorical and the
majority of the answers were nominal with an exception for three questions consisting of ordinal
data. The Chi square statistics χ2 is used to analyse univariate distribution of qualitative variables
and to test correlations in cross tabulations (Djurfeltd et al. 2010). When analysing qualitative
variables the Chi square statistics χ2 is the used method to compare the expected value with theobserved to determine whether the variables are statistically independent or associated. We
wanted to test whether there was a difference between two or more categories. The alternative
hypothesis was tried in order to analyse whether there in fact was a difference between the groups
and if that potential correlation was significant. The validity for our data was reliable since all
variables were grouped into categories and the number of respondents was larger than 30 and the
expected frequency was not smaller than 5 in 20 percent of the cases (Ejlertsson 1984, Howell2009). The alternative hypothesis will be rejected if the observed value is larger than thetabulated value. To avoid a Type one error1 we have used significance test with the chosensignificance level p < 0,05.

1

A type one error occurs when the null hypothesis is rejected when being true (Djurfeltd et al. 2010).

11

The analysis contained the following independent variables, faculty (natural science, social
science, humanities), and position (PhD students, assistants, lecturer, research assistants,
associate professors, professors, adjunct professors). The data was qualitative and nominal(question 1-6, 10-12) and ordinal (question 7-9). Dependent variable was the outcome ofquestions 1-12. Question 7-9 includes a scale for attitude (see table 1) to collaboration we havemeasured the reply frequency of the highest score on that scale.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To find out whether our hypotheses prove true we firstly preformed a cross tabulation. The
faculty of natural science was tested against the faculty of social science and humanities. The
result of the cross tabulation indicated that larger percentage of subjects within the group ofsocial science and humanities were active in the collaboration and commercialisation activities
whereas a larger percentage of the subjects within the group of natural science expressed apositive attitude on the attitude questions and the question on scientific publication with a partoutside the academic sector.
Table 2. Percent “Yes” replies within the two groups, Faculty of Social science andhumanities and the Faculty of Natural science.
Question

Percent within group for “Yes”
Humanities and Social sciences

Percent within group for “Yes”
Natural science

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

10

40,9
30,6
49,4
27,8
28,5
40,5
15,3
(percent of respondents that answered 7)
20,3(percent of respondents that answered 7)
10,4(percent of respondents that answered 7)
21,2

47
38,5
37,9
18,9
25,8
25,8
22,1
(percent of respondents that answered 7)30,9(percent of respondents that answered 7)22,9(percent of respondents that answered 7)
13,8

11

9,2

6,4

8
9

The percentage level was an interesting outcome and contradicted what we firstly intended to test
in some of our hypothesis. Thus we revised our hypothesis on questions 3,4,5,11 for the Chi

12square statistics χ2 test and tested whether the faculty of social science instead collaborated morethan the other faculties on the questions where their percentage indicated this.

Table 3. Questionnaire questions and modified alternative hypothesis.
Questions

Alternative hypothesis H1

QJA3. Have you worked as an advisor/consultant forSocial scientists have been working as anan organisation other than the University or anotheradvisor/consultant to a larger extent than researchers frominstitute of higher education during 2008?

other groups and faculties.

QJA4. Have you held a directorship on a board apart

Social scientists have held directorship to a larger extent

from the University or another institute of higher

than researchers from other faculties.

education during 2008 (other than local associations,
tenant-owner associations or similar)?
QJA5. Have you arranged assignments for and/or

Social scientists have been arranging and supervised

supervised students who have resolved problems forstudents to a larger extent than researchers from othercompanies or public sector organisations during 2008 – faculties.
in the form of projects, papers, theses, etc?
QJA10. Have you conducted any business activities in Social scientists have been conducting business activities tocompanies that you own wholly or partially?

a larger extent than researchers from other faculties.

QJA11. Was the business idea related to your own

Social scientists connect their research toresearch finding?

commercialization to a larger extent than researchers fromother faculties.

The results from chi square statistics χ2 comparing the faculty of natural science with the facultyof social science and humanities led us to accept the hypothesis on four question indicating thatnatural scientist publish scientifically together with an external part to a significantly greater
extent than other faculties and have a more positive attitude to collaboration, its infrastructure andrelation to academic freedom.

Table 4. Natural science versus the Social science and Humanities
Question

Percent within groupfor “Yes”

Alternative
hypothesis H1

Chi square test

P valueDf1

HSs 40,9N 47,0

Reject

5,380

,068

2

13

2
7

8

9

HSs 30,6
N 38,5
HSs 15,3
N 22,1(percent of level 7)
HSs 20,3
N 30,9(percent of level 7)
HSs 10,4
N 22,9(percent of level 7)

Accept13,123,001

2

Accept15,926,003

4Accept27,249,000

5Accept41,053,000

5(HSc= Faculty of Humanities and Social science, N= Faculty of Natural science)

We separated the faculty of social science to test against the faculty of natural science andhumanities on the questions 1,3,4,5,6,10,11. The results indicated that the faculty of social
science were significantly more active in collaboration activities than the other faculties.

Table 5. Social science versus the Humanities and Natural science
Question

Percent within groupfor “Yes”

Alternative
hypothesis H1

Chi square test

P valueDf3

Ss 53,5
NH 40
Ss 29,3
NH 21,5
Ss 36,3
NH 22,4
Ss 46,3
NH 28,2
Ss 14,9%NH 13,8%
Ss 11,6
NH 6,1

Accept11,812,003

2Accept17,637,000

2Accept33,385,000

2Accept47,984,000

2Accept20,374,000

2Accept20,172

,000

2

4
5
6
10
11

(Ss= Faculty of Social Science, NH= Faculty of Natural science and Humanities.)

In difference from the comparisons between faculties the results from the cross tabulationcomparing professors with other academic ranks indicated that the professors to a larger extent
participated in collaboration activities than other groups. One exception was question 9, which
was removed from the hypothesis testing. However, for the other questions we did not change inoriginal hypothesis when performing significance testing but continued as intended. The chisquare statistics χ2 comparing professors with the other academic groups resulted in an
acceptance of all hypotheses except for question 7. This indicates that professors are more prone14

to collaborate than other academic ranks and have a more positive attitude to collaboration thanother academic ranks.
Table 6. Professors versus other academic ranks
Question

Percent withingroup for “Yes”

Alternative
hypothesis H1

Chi square test

P value

Df

1

Prof 66,4
Other 38,1
Prof 55,9Other 28,8Prof 70,3
Other 39,3
Prof 45,3
Other 19,8
Prof 47,3
Other 23,1
Prof 49,2
Other 31,6
Prof 12,5
Other 19,2
(percent of level 7)
Prof 25,4
Other 24,1
(percent of level 7)
Prof 27,7
Other 16,2
Prof 16,4
Other 6,3
Prof 34,8
Other 26,5

Accept69,713,000

2Accept

70,772,000

2Accept81,924,000

2Accept74,397,000

2Accept61,597,000

2Accept28,771,000

2Reject27,240,000

4Accept29,727,000

5Accept18,899,000

2

Accept30,203,000

2Accept

7,852

,020

2

2
3
4
5
6
7

8

10
11
12

(Prof= professors, Other= PhD students, Assistants, Adjunct lecturer, Research Assistants, Seniorlecturer, Fellow/Docent, Adjunct professor)
Our results demonstrate that the participation in collaboration activities vary between
representatives from different faculties. We have rejected the hypothesis stating that thefaculty of natural science would be more prone to participate in collaboration activities on allquestions except the second question, which indicated that they are more prone to publish
scientifically together with an actor outside the scientific community. However, by contrast to
Nagpaul (2000) and Lee (1996) previous research, natural scientists are not significantly
active on boards and in consultancy work but, as previously mentioned, more active inscientific collaborations with an external part. Such collaboration may often result inscientific publishing, which also should engage external social capital building throughquality control by external partners. We believe this is the case due to natural scientist are15

more likely to perform applied research than social science and therefore have a higher
frequency of publications that are co-authored with the research intensive industry.
Collaboration in terms of consultancy have not proved to be extensive within the naturalsciences demonstrate that despite previously mentioned publishing pattern the level ofexternal social capital is still low. A possible explanation is that collaboration in scientificpublishing often focuses on a specific research question, which may be insufficient forbuilding external social capital between the partners.

Previous research demonstrates that attitudes to collaboration differ between faculties andacademic ranks (Langford et al. 2009), with researchers within the humanities possessing anoutspoken fear of losing their academic freedom (Lee 2005, Castro et al. 2008). Our result
indicates that attitudes differ between faculties. Significantly, the faculty of natural science
believes that the support for collaboration is good at their workplace. Representatives for thefaculty of natural science also believe that commitment to collaboration has a highly favourable
impact on their academic career. However, the results illustrate that the researchers from thenatural sciences are more positive to collaboration in theory than practise since the naturalscientist demonstrated to be fairly inactive in collaboration activities despite having a positive
attitude. Suggestively their internal social capital indicating a positive attitude to collaboration
does not correlate with their external social capital and actual low participation rate. The
indication that the faculty of natural science is restrictive with the type of external social capitalbuilding activities as measured in the questionnaire contradicts previous research to some extent
since previous research suggest that natural sciences collaborate more than social sciences.

The opposite pattern was discovered when testing the faculty of social science against the otherfaculties. The faculty of social sciences was compared to the other faculties more engaged in allother collaboration activities still having a negative attitude towards some measured aspects ofcollaboration. Overall, our results suggest that the faculty social sciences are engaged in thesurrounding environment and have a given platform for generating more external social capitalalso illustrating a strong internal social capital regardless of not demonstrating positive attitudes
to collaboration on the attitude questions. It could indicate that the interfaculty differences in
attitudes to collaboration does not relate to actual participation level illustrating a possible

16conflict between the existing internal social capital and building of external social capital.
Individuals within the faculty of natural science do not believe collaboration being a threat to theacademic freedom compared to the other faculties even though not actually being active incollaboration. Their internal social capital does not appear to be connected to their building of
external social capital, which complicates the progress of the external social capital.

Our result also shows that attitudes differ between academic ranks. Professors are
significantly more positive to collaboration expressing that they experience support forcollaboration and commitment to this at their institution. These results link to previous
sections demonstrating that professors are more engaged in collaboration and possess a morepositive attitude to such activities than their fellow research colleagues. Our results indicatethat academic ranks have a significant effect on the level of external social capital building interms of participating in research projects where external partners participation has beenpromoted by the organisation funding the collaboration or published with an external coauthor. Professors show a significant level of participation compared to the other academic
ranks suggesting that engagement to collaboration and building of external social capitalincrease with academic prestige.

Presumably, professors have gained more scientific acclamation and have already built aninternal social capital through consistent peer review processes. This provides a possibility
and acceptance for generating more external social capital, which in turn generates morecontacts and more possibility for participating in collaboration activities such as consultancy,
boards, and engaging students in collaboration with the industry. A reason for less accreditedgroups being significantly less active in collaboration activities may be due to the focus on
scientific accreditation that still needs to focus on internal social capital with the traditional
peer review process. It may also indicate that earning a certain prestige within academia andbuilding sufficient internal social capital is necessary in order to build external social capital.
In other words, collaboration requires academic experience, which also relates to previous
research on researchers with high number of scientific publishing correlating withparticipating in collaboration activities. We also suggest that this demonstrate that theindustry rather collaborate with researchers having a high scientific credibility and high17

internal social capital.

Additionally our results provide some evidence on differences in commercialization engagement
and faculty as well as academic rank. As we expected in our hypothesis, professors demonstrated
to have been more active in business activities than other researchers and see more potential forcommercialization in their own research. More interestingly we had to reject our hypothesis thatthe faculty of natural sciences was more engaged in commercialization through businessexperience and relating their looking for commercial potential in their research. Instead we
discovered, in similarity with the engagement in collaboration activities, that the faculty of social
science was more prone to being active in a business and also relating their own scientific finding
to potential commercialization. Even if the researchers from the social sciences did not express
any trust to the HEI ability to support collaboration and commercialization they still indulged inboth type of activities.

5. CONCLUSION
Our results firstly confirmed already established knowledge indicating that professor’s and highly
productive scientists are more engaged in collaboration activities than other academics. Moreinterestingly, our results also indicated on several levels that social scientists are more engaged incollaboration activities and commercialisation than the other faculties. Natural scientists
demonstrated to be active in collaboration on only one level, publishing with an external part.
Such type of collaboration may not establish any type of external social capital that would
generate more types of collaboration activities.

Interestingly, natural scientists demonstrated to be more positive to different aspects ofcollaboration even though not being very active in the actual activities. Overall, natural scientists
tended to be less apt to build external social capital and commercialise research than social
scientist. This illustrates, in opposite to what we believed, that the attitudes towards collaborationand commercialisation are detached from real participation in activities and instead an expressionof an established culture within the faculty, their internal social capital. The results lead us tobelieve that social non-formalised networks that form external social capital are too complex to
only depend on a stable internal social capital and so far difficult to predict.

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