Domestic versus Foreign R&D Collaboration and Technology Transfer Performance: Does Technology Field Matter?

In the world of scientific discovery, the moment a new invention is created is often just the beginning of a long journey. For a technology to move from a laboratory bench to a product on a shelf, it usually needs to be licensed to a company that can manufacture and sell it. The money generated from these deals, known as royalty income, is a primary way researchers and governments measure whether their work has succeeded in the marketplace. A central idea in modern innovation is that no single organization holds all the answers. To succeed, research teams often need to partner with others. These partnerships can happen right next door, within the same country, or they can reach across borders to connect with experts in foreign nations. The logic is that working together allows teams to combine different skills and knowledge, making the final invention more valuable. However, a lingering question for policymakers and university leaders has been whether the location of a partner matters. Does it matter if the collaboration happens domestically or internationally? Furthermore, does the answer change depending on what kind of science is being done? Is a partnership in biotechnology, which relies heavily on global scientific networks, fundamentally different from a partnership in information technology, which often grows through local industry ecosystems?

A researcher at Hongik University set out to answer these questions by looking at a massive collection of real-world data from South Korea. The study examined thousands of technology licensing agreements that resulted from government-funded research projects completed between 2017 and 2019. The researcher focused on four major fields of technology: information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and environmental technology. By analyzing the actual royalty payments recorded in these contracts, the study could see clearly how much money different types of partnerships generated. The goal was to determine if working with a domestic partner or a foreign partner consistently led to higher earnings, and if the type of technology being developed changed the strength of that relationship.

The analysis began by looking at the raw numbers. The data showed that, overall, projects that involved collaboration with a domestic partner earned more in royalties than those that did not. Similarly, projects that involved a foreign partner also tended to earn more. This confirmed a broad expectation that working with others, whether near or far, adds commercial value to public research. The study then dug deeper to see if this pattern held true when accounting for other factors, such as the size of the research budget or whether the invention had been patented. Even after adjusting for these variables, the positive link between collaboration and earnings remained strong for domestic partners, particularly in the field of information technology. For foreign partners, the positive trend was also present, though the data was much scarcer because very few projects in the sample involved international cooperation.

The most significant part of the study was testing whether the type of technology field changed these results. It is a common belief in the field of innovation that different industries operate under different rules. For example, biotechnology is often seen as a global science where knowledge is shared across borders, while information technology might rely more on local standards and domestic supply chains. The researcher hypothesized that the benefit of a foreign partner might be much higher for biotechnology than for information technology, or that domestic partners might be more valuable in one field than another. To test this, the study used a rigorous statistical method to compare the effects across all four technology fields simultaneously.

The results were clear and somewhat surprising. While the study confirmed that both domestic and foreign partnerships generally lead to higher royalty income, it found no evidence that the type of technology field changed the strength of this effect. In other words, the data did not support the idea that international partnerships are systematically more valuable for biotechnology than for information technology, or that domestic partnerships work better in one specific field than another. The relationship between collaboration and financial success appeared to be consistent across the board. The researcher noted that while the raw numbers showed some variation—for instance, foreign partnerships seemed to generate higher earnings in biotechnology and environmental technology in the raw data—these differences were not statistically significant once the small number of international projects in those fields was taken into account. The study concluded that the idea of tailoring collaboration strategies specifically to different technology fields might not be necessary based on this evidence.

This finding offers a new perspective for the organizations that fund and manage scientific research. For decades, the prevailing wisdom suggested that different industries require different approaches to partnership. The study suggests that, at least regarding the financial return from licensing, the benefits of working together are universal. Whether a team is working on a new software platform or a new medical treatment, bringing in an external partner, whether local or international, tends to increase the commercial value of the work. The study does not rule out that international partnerships might create different kinds of value, such as more radical or novel inventions, but it does show that in terms of the money generated from licensing, the field of study does not appear to be a deciding factor.

The research also highlighted the challenges of studying international collaboration. Because foreign partnerships were so rare in the dataset—accounting for less than two percent of all projects—it was difficult to draw firm conclusions about them with absolute certainty. The study explicitly stated that the lack of a detected difference across fields should be seen as a lack of evidence for a difference, rather than proof that no difference exists. Future research with larger samples of international projects would be needed to confirm these patterns. However, for the current data, the message is one of consistency. The value of collaboration appears to be a steady force that does not fluctuate wildly depending on the scientific discipline. This suggests that funding agencies and technology transfer offices might not need to create complex, field-specific rules for encouraging partnerships. Instead, they can focus on the general principle that connecting researchers with external partners, regardless of geography or specific field, is a reliable way to enhance the commercial success of public research.