No 2010/15 Innovation in cultural industries

The role of university links

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of university knowledge in innovation processes of cultural industries. Most of the previous studies on cultural industries highlighted the importance of locally clustered firms in innovation processes. Studies, analyzing university-industry collaboration focused on technological development or industrial R&D, neglecting cultural industries as object of analysis. The paper addresses this gap in the literature while analyzing collaboration with university patterns and innovation processes of new media firms in Scania, Southern Sweden. The findings reveal that innovation, influenced by industry-academia collaboration, takes place not only in technology based industries. Collaborative aspects of innovation process go beyond R&D transfer and include joint competence building, changes in market concepts and new social corporate responsibility actions. This paper adds to the understanding of innovation processes in cultural industries by introducing university as one more important actor in the knowledge exchange networks.