University-industry R&D collaboration in the automotive, biotechnology and electronics firms in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine the drivers of R&D collaboration between firms and universities and research institutes using a sample of automotive, biotechnology and electronics firms from Malaysia. The Probit regression results indicate that R&D intensity, openness to R&D as measured by partner diversity, access to wider range of channels of information, and size matter for university-industry collaboration in the overall sample. Size was inversely correlated with the probability of R&D collaboration between firms, and universities and research institutes in all the industry samples. At the industry-level R&D intensity and importance of university as a source of knowledge were important in automotive firms, R&D intensity, channels of R&D information and partner diversity were important in biotechnology and the channels of R&D information and R&D partner diversity were important in electronics