The role of patenting activity for scientific research: A study of academic inventors from China's nanotechnology

Scientists from universities are becoming more proactive in their efforts to commercialize research results. Patenting, as an important channel of university knowledge transfer, has initiated a controversy on potential effects for the future of scientific research. This paper contributes to the growing study on the relationship between patenting and publishing among faculty members with China's evidence in the field of nanotechnology. Data from top 32 most prolific universities in patenting are used to examine the relationship, consisting of 6321 confirmed academic inventors who both publish and patent over the time period 1991–2008. By controlling for heterogeneity of patenting activities, patenting experience, institutional affiliation and collaboration with foreign researchers, the findings in China's nanotechnology generally support earlier investigations concluding that patenting activity does not adversely affect research output. Patenting, however, has negative impacts on both quantity and quality of university researchers’ publication output, when the assignee lists include corporations or scientists themselves.