THE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS ON ACADEMIC PATENTING

The present study investigates determinants and interactions of institutional-and individual-inventor-level variables that lead to varying patenting activity and success at academic institutions. Based on a sample of 148 academic institutions with 58,061 individual inventors, applying single-and multi-level analyses, and testing for cross-level interactions, we derive three main insights: First, a higher budget of an institution and a higher number of connections of inventors help increase patenting activity. Second, a higher network centrality of an institution’s inventors in the inventor network increases patenting success. Third, higher institution reputation and budget strengthen the relation between betweenness centrality and patenting success.