Science and technology park: Future challenges

Highlights

• The study analyses and classifies 56 articles related to STP.

• The paper presents an overview of these important habitats of innovation.

• The method of the paper leads to the identification of themes for future research.

Abstract

Science and Technology Parks (STPs) originated in the 1950s in the US. Since then, a number of countries have implemented these types of parks to develop and revitalize regions, boost high-tech industry sectors, foster greater industry-academia interaction, support new technology-based firms (NTBFs), and encourage academic spin-offs. Although these parks have operated for many years, there is no universally accepted definition in the literature or consensus regarding the contributions of STPs to the region and tenant companies. Using the method proposed by Lage Junior and Godinho Filho (2010), this study analyses 56 articles, indicating their objectives and results and providing guidance on controversial topics, and identifies existing gaps, opportunities, and challenges for future studies. The results suggest that the multiple definitions of STPs make expectations about these parks very high. Much of the literature identifies positive contributions for both the region and tenant companies and the main impact is fostering greater interaction with universities.

Introduction

Science and Technology Parks (STPs) are an important tool for uniting industry and academia. According to Dierdonck et al. [1]; p. 109), the gap between academic science and industrial technology stems from the belief that academia and industry represent two different worlds that are frequently inconsistent with each other. It is precisely in this context that STPs stand out by providing an environment in which the interaction between research institutes and companies is encouraged. Díez-Vial and Montoro-Sánchez [2]; p. 41) note that STPs create an atmosphere that favours the exchange of knowledge between companies located in the park, universities, and the market.

Using a metaphor [3], points to two main objectives of STPs: to be a seedbed of innovation, which consists of fostering the development and growth of New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs), to promote the transfer of university know-how to tenant companies and to encourage the development of faculty-based spin-offs. According to this author, the second objective is to be a catalyst for regional development by stimulating economic growth and revitalizing urban areas.

After their emergence in the 1950s in the US, STPs quickly spread around the world. Success stories in the US, such as Silicon Valley and Route 128, encouraged a number of public officials to implement STPs in other countries. However, despite several successful cases, many STPs did not achieve their goals, raising several questions in the literature regarding the true effectiveness of these parks. An important argument by Yang et al. [4]; p. 85) provides guidance on these questions, asserting that the success of an STP cannot simply be replicated from one region to another. In other words, the policy of boosting technological development through parks cannot be implemented without limits and adaptation to different realities.

Despite many years in operation, the contribution of STPs is still not completely clear [5]; p. 137) [6]. analyses 52 Chinese STPs in the period from 1992 to 2000 and finds no evidence that companies benefit when they are located in STPs [7]. evaluate three STPs in Greece, where formal links with universities are identified in only one STP. These authors state that, in general, STPs do not meet expectations. On the other hand [8], identifies that NTBFs located in STPs have a higher propensity to engage in joint research with research institutes by studying six parks in Japan from 1998 to 2003. Similarly, when comparing on-park NTBFs with off-park NTBFs [9], find that the NTBFs in the STPs have more connections with universities whereas the sample of off-park NTBFs has lower performance.

A major difficulty in assessing STPs is clearly defining what their purpose is [10]. states that the idea of STPs is to provide infrastructure for technical, logistical, administrative, and financial support to help new companies survive and gain market share. In contrast [2], claim that STPs are created with the goal of transferring technology from universities to tenant companies. In addition [11], suggest that there is no systematic framework for understanding STPs. In certain situations, an STP may fulfil one expected role but not meet another. Thus, many authors believe STPs are not contributing in the expected manner because the expectations are very high, given that the hope is that such parks will satisfy all of the different existing needs and demands. What is clear is that, despite controversial results, STPs generally contribute to tenant firms in some manner.

Given this context, this study analyses 56 articles published in different journals from the 1980s to September 2016 that are identified using keywords such as “technology park”, “science park”, “technopark”, and “techpark”. This work fills a gap identified in the STP literature through the analysis of the researched articles and studies that review the literature, as demonstrated in Section 5. Thus, in more detail, the objectives of this work are as follows:

• To classify and code the studies, integrating results and relating them to emerging issues in the researched topic;

• To briefly analyse and present the state of the art for the central topics of science and technology park, mainly in terms of their impacts, whether on the region or on the companies; and

• To provide a research agenda, highlighting the major gaps and challenges in the subject for future researchers.

To fulfil these objectives, this article is structured as follows: the research method is presented in Section 2; the classification and coding criteria for the analysed articles are described in Section 3; a brief contextualization of STPs is performed in Section 4; the results of the coding are discussed in Section 5; and finally, the conclusions are provided in Section 6.