CHER 29th Annual Conference

University of Cambridge, UK

A critical view on knowledge transfer: Discovering new

interfaces between universities and regional economies
Track 3

Giacomo Balduzzi, Centre for Study and Research on Higher Education Systems,
University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
Michele Rostan, Centre for Study and Research on Higher Education Systems, University
of Pavia, Pavia, Italy *

Corresponding author: Giacomo Balduzzi

Corresponding author’s email: giacomo.balduzzi@unipv.it

Abstract

Moving from a critical view on knowledge transfer and universities’ contribution to industrial
innovation and economic development, this paper focuses on a particular kind of interface
between the economic system and the higher education system. Through the analysis of three
Italian cases, the study aims at underlining the role played by extra-academic and autonomous
organizations in producing, acquiring, transferring and transforming knowledge by mobilising
resources, mediating different interests and developing wide and complex networks of
relationships both at the regional and the global levels.

Keywords: productive transformation of knowledge; regional-global interfaces; higher

education systems; university-industry relationships

* The present study has been carried out as a joint research work. Nonetheless, Michele
Rostan wrote sections 1 and 5, Giacomo Balduzzi wrote sections 2, and 3, and the two authors
wrote section 4.

1. Purpose of the paper and approach

1.1 A critical view on knowledge transfer

The study of the relationship between universities and the economic sector has largely focused
on the contribution of universities to industrial innovation in terms of knowledge (or, mostly,

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‘technology’) transfer. University-industry ‘technology transfer’ has been considered as the
passing on of previously developed research results from university laboratories to industry.
However, according to many empirical studies, this view seems to be too simplistic and
indeed unrealistic. Bonaccorsi and Bucchi (2011) criticize the ‘technology transfer’ approach
(TT), and conclude that the expression should be abolished and replaced with the notion of
‘productive transformation of knowledge’ (PTK), that is an uncertain process of knowledge-
based generation of useful objects, implying the direct and active participation of knowledge
holders who are embedded in specific social and cultural contexts (pp. 234–237, 257–259).
The process of PTK displays several characteristics:
• it is a time-consuming activity (frequently highly consuming);
• it is a process that requires the active involvement of knowledge-holders;
• it must engage people in three dimensions: the cognitive one (individual intentions
and values), the emotional one (intimate satisfactions and personal gratifications),
and the behavioural one (system of incentives);
• it requires the permanent or, more often, temporary mobility of people;
• it takes place within institutional contexts which are not always able to support the
process by providing legitimation, motivations and incentives.
In our view, the PTK is too complex and costly to be implemented by a single
individual; it requires an organization able to mobilize adequate resources, instruments and
legitimation. As a consequence, the study of this process must be carried out including an
organisational perspective.

1.2 Purpose of the paper

The paper aims at comparing the results of three studies on organisations acting as interfaces
between universities and firms in the Italian context. Comparing the three cases it is possible
to identify at least some similarities that can be interpreted as common organisational
conditions of the PTK.
The paper suggests that special organizations deeply embedded in their economic and
institutional environment at the regional level and closely interconnected within a dense and
extended network of various actors at a global level are a key-actor in the process of PTK
representing an underestimated resource for universities to organize their “third mission”
activities and their contribution to industrial innovation.

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2. Design, methods and data
2.1 The design of the multiple-case study

Our investigation on the PTK was initially designed as a single-case study of the Politecnico
Calzaturiero (Balduzzi & Rostan, 2016).
The results of this first analysis suggested searching for other examples of similar
autonomous special organizations. The research turned into a multiple-case study, following a
«replication logic» (Yin, 2014, p. 57). Two other case studies have been carried out (Balduzzi &
Rostan, 2015; Balduzzi, Ceravolo & Rostan, 2016) with the purpose of exploring differences
and similarities in how the PTK occurs in distinct contexts.
Thus, this paper examines three organizations operating in the northern regions of
Italy. These organizations have been selected on the basis of the following criteria: 1) they are
embedded in localised clusters of enterprises specialised in specific sectors; 2) they are neither
university units nor firms; 3) they connect different actors and specialized domains in settings
where innovation is desired.
The design of each individual case study involves three levels of analysis: the context,
the embedded case and one sub-unit of analysis (Yin, 2014, pp. 49–50). As regards the context,
we will draw attention on the different local systems in which the organizations are
embedded, considering the main features of their economic evolution and performance. The
analysis of the embedded case concerns the single special organization, its history, structure,
owners, resources, activities and organizational field. The third level of analysis considers one
significant project that each single organization carried out. The analysis of the project aims to
explore how the PTK occurs within the organization, focusing on the main dimensions of the
process: actors, time, and settings.

2.2 Sources of information

The case studies were carried out collecting information from different sources (Yin, 2014, pp.
105-107):
published studies, reports ad articles available at libraries and websites;
news clippings and other articles appearing in the mass media and in local
newspapers:
unpublished documents and internal records (data on the governing bodies members,
universities and research centres collaborating with the organizations, reports on
recent projects);

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 direct observations of the spaces of the organizations, such as classrooms, meeting
rooms, laboratories with specialized equipment that are used during their daily life
activities.

Further, we carried out seven in-depth interviews:

Interview 1, M. T., director of the Politecnico Calzaturiero;
Interview 2, C. M., director of the footwear manufacturers’ Association of Riviera del
Brenta;
Interview 3, G. D., member of the Italian parliament, full professor at the University of
Padua;
Interview 4, G. B., director of the Department of Science and Technology Innovation at
the University of Eastern Piedmont;
Interview 5, A. F., shareholder and past director of Tecnogranda;
Interview 6, R. F., director of the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia;
Interview 7, G. G., professor at the University of Pavia and founder of a spin-off
company based at the Technology Pole of Pavia;
Interview 8, F. S., Vice-Rector for University Third Mission, University of Pavia.

In the following sections we compare the selected cases at three levels of analysis:
contexts, organizations, and projects.

3. Findings
3.1 Different contexts, similar challenges
The study examines three cases: the Politecnico Calzaturiero in Riviera del Brenta (Padua),
Tecnogranda in Dronero (Cuneo), and the Polo Tecnologico in Pavia.
The Politecnico Calzaturiero is a training institute providing services to the footwear
sector. It is based in Capriccio di Vigonza, near Padua, in the heart of the Riviera del Brenta’s
footwear industrial district. The area has a long tradition in shoe manufacturing. As many other
industrial districts the origins of the local industry date back to the establishment of the first
mechanized shoe factory, in 1898. Many workers from this factory began to set up their own
independent businesses in Strà (Venice) and other nearby villages. This marked the beginning
of the shoe district known as ‘Riviera del Brenta’, named after the river that flows through the
area.

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 In 1961, the footwear manufacturers association of the Riviera del Brenta (ACRIB) was
set up. The association brought and still brings together entrepreneurs of the footwear
industry in the area.
Since the second half of the 1980s, the district has suffered from increasing
international competition, and sales have stagnated. Increasingly local firms started to convert
their business, aiming to integrate into the global value-chain (Gereffi, 1994). Many of Brenta’s
shoe producers began to work as subcontractors for high fashion global companies.
Afterwards many of the world's most important luxury brands (Dior, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and
so on) decided to establish their own production units in the area.
In today’s increasingly difficult competitive environment for Italian manufacturers, the
Brenta district is characterized by dynamism and resilience. Currently, the 522 footwear
companies in the area still represent 70% of the footwear industry in Veneto and 10% of the
Italian footwear sector. The 10,043 employees engaged in Riviera del Brenta footwear industry
represent 62% of the regional workforce in the sector and 14% of the entire footwear sector in
Italy (Associazione Calzaturifici Riviera del Brenta [ACRIB], 2014).
The development of the Politecnico Calzaturiero can be seen as a sign of the reactive
capacity characterizing the district. ACRIB established the training institute with the purpose of
improving skills and encourage innovation by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in
the district. The value of district exports in 2015 amounted to 735 million euros (Intesa
Sanpaolo, 2016, p. 7).
Tecnogranda is an innovation centre specialized in the agro-food sector. It is based in
Dronero, near Cuneo, in the extreme northwestern part of the country. Cuneo's agro-food
industry is of great importance for the province, which is historically known as “La provincia
granda” as the name of the organisation recalls.
Some of the most important Italian transnational food companies have their origins
and headquarters in the province. Among them are confectioners like Ferrero (best known for
its chocolate spread “Nutella”), Venchi Maina and Balocco, preserved food producers like
Galfrè and Agrimontana, wine and spirits manufacturers like Cinzano and Fontanafredda.
According to the last Census, the food cluster includes 394 farming firms and 1,196
food or drink manufacturing companies (Istat, 2011). The 14,257 cluster’s employees
represent 37% of the regional food sector workforce. Meanwhile, the 779 employees in the
Cuneo’s farming sector are 33% of the regional agricultural workers (Balduzzi & Rostan, 2015,
p. 12).
The province of Cuneo is the second major exporter of foods, drinks and farming
products in Italy (Istat-Coeweb, 2015). In 2015 Cuneo’s exports in this sector amounted to a

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total value of 2,515 billion euro. Food and drinks with farming products have an extremely high
share of the province’s export volumes as a whole (35.6%). The impact of this business is even
more significant, if we consider that the machinery sector representing 14.3% of province’s
export, is largely formed by companies producing machines for the agro-food industry (Camera
di Commercio di Cuneo, 2016, p. 30).
The Polo Tecnologico of Pavia is a technology park established by Durabo, a locally
based real estate company. Since the ‘90s local operators, technicians, engineers and
managers working in the high tech sector felt the need to create a technology park to foster
the development of innovative projects in the area of Pavia, engaging students, entrepreneurs
and investors.
The province of Pavia presents a large variety of productive specializations
encompassing chemicals, mechanical engineering, textiles, footwear and traditional rice
cultivation and wine production. Pavia economy is characterised by the prevalence SMEs.
Micro, small, and medium enterprises accounted for 99.6% of Pavia’s businesses (Infocamere,
2015).
During the last decades the deindustrialization and tertiarization processes particularly
affected the province. In 2014 the share of services in value added terms in the province (51%)
was higher than regional (49%) and national (50%) averages (Camera di Commercio di Pavia,
2016, p. 43).
The manufacturing engineering industry (shoemaking machinery, precision
metalworking, sterilisers, fridge and air conditioning compressors, sheet metal working, metal
components, electronic and micro-electronic devices) has the highest share of the province’s
export sales (41%). The second place is occupied by the chemical, biomedicine and
pharmaceutical sectors (33%) (Camera di Commercio di Pavia, 2016, p. 100).
Pavia is a university town and the University of Pavia is one of the world’s oldest
academic institutions. Having been founded in 1361, it was the only university in the area of
Milan and the region of Lombardy until the 20th century. Currently, about 24,000 students
study at the University of Pavia. The University has an ancient tradition in medicine studies,
research and treatment. At present, four hospitals located in Pavia are associated with the
university: the Policlinico San Matteo, the Istituto di Cura Città di Pavia, the Fondazione
Salvatore Maugeri, and the Fondazione Istituto Neurologico Nazionale C. Mondino. In addition,
the University of Pavia collaborates with CNAO (the National Centre of Oncological Hadron
therapy), an innovative and technologically advanced clinical facility established in Pavia by the
Italian Ministry of Health.

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 According to the last Census, the University employees 2,359 people, while the
workers at local public hospitals are 6,770. As the total employees are 35,086, the university
and public health services contribute to more than 26% of the total city workforce (Istat,
2011).
Besides the presence of a quite significant pharmaceutical industry, the impact of the
University and public hospitals in the local economic system facilitates the start-up of new
companies in the field of the life sciences and in the sector of medical devices. In order to
promote and support the innovation in this field, in 2007 the University, the Municipality, the
Province and the Chamber of Commerce of Pavia created a science and technology park,
hosted in university buildings. Differently from the private initiative we will deal with more
extensively in this paper, this public-funded incubator focuses exclusively on life sciences
projects, generally characterized by longer time-to-market and high development costs.
Although the selected organizations are operating in the northern regions of the
country, they are embedded in different economic and social contexts. The clusters of
enterprises have different origins and sectors of specialization. Further, contexts also vary
along a number of other dimensions, including the geography of territories.
According to the recent statistical analysis of the Italian local labour systems (Istat,
2015, pp. 44-47), the three cases of this study belong to different types of functional
geographic areas.
The footwear industrial district of Riviera del Brenta may be included in a group of
local systems characterized by a dispersed settlement model (città diffusa, or the sprawl city).
Local systems of this group are concentrated in Northeast and Central Italy. These local labour
market areas have high population density in extra-urban areas.
The local labour area of Cuneo is a rural system (cuore verde, or the green core). This
type of local system is characterized by low population density, low incidence of population
centres, and high extension of the extra-urban areas.
The local labour market area of Pavia is included in the Centre-Northern homogeneous
urban systems (le città del Centro-Nord). The local systems of the most important Italian cities
(Roma, Milano, Torino, etc.) belong to this group. The population density here is definitely
high. Moreover, most of the people who live in such areas are concentrated in the regional
capital city.
The three cases clearly reflect both differences and commonalities across the regional
and local economies of Northern Italy. Despite the long and profound recession following the
economic crisis of 2008, Italy preserves its solid industrial base, and it remains the second
largest manufacturing economy in Europe (after Germany) and one of the largest in the world.

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Differently from Germany, though, the Italian manufacturing system is characterized by SMEs
operating in local productive systems, mostly industrial districts, highly concentrated in Central
and Northern regions. The SMEs of these systems lack the organizational resources and skills
to address their demands and make requests for knowledge directly to universities and
research institutions.
Further, Italian higher education displays some distinctive features as well (Moscati,
2006). The higher education sector, largely coinciding with the university system, does not
include teaching and research activities closely related to the various manufacturing industries.
The education system assigns the task of vocational training in this field to non-academic
schools. As a consequence universities often lack direct experience of and relationships with
the relevant stakeholders.

3.2 The organizations

In this paper we focus on three different organizations in terms of legal status, ownership of
assets and main activities.
By law, the Politecnico Calzaturiero is a ‘consortium company’, that is a private organization
held by a voluntary alliance of private and public institutions. The principal owner of the entity
is the local footwear manufacturers association (ACRIB). In 1986 ACRIB, together with a
consortium of national and regional employers’ associations, local and regional authorities,
and local banks, took over the traditional artisan school, operating in the district since 1923.
This consortium in 2001 established the Politecnico Calzaturiero. The name of the institution is
the combination of two terms. The term ‘politecnico’ refers to the mission of the institution in
the field of technical tertiary education and training, while the term ‘calzaturiero’ refers to a
specific sector, namely the footwear industry. Although providing training and applied
research, the Politecnico Calzaturiero is very different from the four technical universities
exixting in Italy, namely the Politecnico di Torino, the Politecnico di Milano, the Politecnico di
Bari and the Università Politecnica delle Marche. The latter are state institutions holding
university status mainly training engineers and architects. The Politecnico Calzaturiero is a
private institution training highly specialized technicians; although a well-reputed institution, it
does not hold university status.
The institution’s building contains eight classrooms for teaching and practical
exercises, two information technology laboratories with 32 workstations equipped with
Internet connections, software for office automation and 2D and 3D CAD–CAM design.

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Although it is mainly a training institution, the Politecnico Calzaturiero also carries out
consulting activities, services to firms, research and innovation projects.
Training and education activities include the Technical School for Modelers and
Shoemakers, continuing education training courses and postgraduate and higher technical
education courses. The Politecnico has been promoting some of them in cooperation with
secondary schools, industry associations, local authorities, the University of Padua and other
universities (Balduzzi and Rostan, 2016, p. 26).
The organization regularly collaborates with more than 200 firms, half of which are
located in the district. The integration of training activities with the other activities of the
institution is important to understand the needs of the enterprises, and provide continuous
technical updating and refresher courses.
The Politecnico has five permanent employees. Approximately 100 more experts work
for the institution as teachers, trainers and laboratory technicians through individual contracts.
Tecnogranda is a limited company that was established in 2002 as a public-private joint
venture. The company received funding from the European Union, according to the Single
Programming Document (SPD) 2000-2006, Objective 2.3.
After a first incubation period, the company’s business started in 2005. At that time,
the focus of the organization was on innovation for mechanical and electronic components.
However, within a year some difficulties arose. In late 2006, shareholders and promoting
institutions were forced to rethink the objectives and business plan of the company.
A program of reorientation was defined between mid-2006 and early 2007. The plan
included a new specialization in the agro-food industry, considering also that the Regione
Piemonte was projecting a science and technology park to support and develop competiveness
in that sector.
Local economic stakeholders, especially employers’ associations and local authorities,
strongly supported the decision to focus on the agro-food sector. Therefore, this new focus
was closely associated with the traditional productive specialization of the local cluster. The
new business plan, differently from the previous one, pooled local political, economic and
social resources, rapidly transforming the corporate partnership and the management of the
company. In 2008 twelve new shareholders joined the company including private companies,
local banks, employers’ associations and the Municipality of Cuneo, now a major shareholder
of the company. Meanwhile, the company had acquired new assets, particularly highly
specialized managers and employees in the agro-food sector.
In 2009 Regione Piemonte officially assigned the role of agro-food innovation cluster
manager to Tecnogranda. Within three years the number Tecnogranda’s services users nearly

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quadrupled from 100 in 2009 to about 400 at the end of 2011. Considering the science park as
a whole, Tecnogranda covers about 11,000 square metres of buildings with offices,
laboratories and other rooms for meetings and conferences. Firms operating in the agro-food
cluster can use Tecnogranda’s laboratories, install their own equipment, and establish offices
or other operating activities within it.
Science park laboratories aim at offering high-level R&D services related to new
materials, new technologies and production problem-solving abilities. The park includes
several facilities: a) a laboratory for research and experimentation on nanostructured
materials; b) a laboratory providing chemical, micro-biological and bio molecular analyses of
agro-food products; c) a laboratory focusing on food packaging innovation; d) a laboratory
specialized in innovative technologies for decontaminating and sanitizing packaging and food
products; e) a laboratory equipped for electromagnetic compatibility testing.
Tecnogranda carries out various and different sets of activities:
business services for the development and diffusion of technological innovation (as
“science park”);
assistance to start-up and existing companies in order to accelerate their innovation
abilities (as “incubator”);
stimulus to the local agro-food system’s growth and competitiveness (as “cluster
manager” of the agro-food innovation pole).
With regard to ownership, five public members hold almost 60% of the shares. The
most important of them is Finpiemonte, a financial company controlled by the regional
government. Recently, negotiations are on going to transfer the majority stake of the company
from Finpiemonte to a publicly held local business service company called MIAC (Mercato
Ingrosso Agroalimentare Cuneo). The other public shareholders, the Chamber of Commerce of
Cuneo, the Mountain Community of Valli Grana and Maira, the municipalities of Cuneo and
Dronero, own smaller proportions of shares.
The remaining private owners are holding small blocks of shares. The list of private
organizations holding shares includes local banks, entrepreneurial associations and firms. Most
of the shareholders are SMEs, but larger companies such as Venchi, one of the oldest Italian
chocolate producers, are also present. Currently the innovation cluster involves more than 460
companies. SMEs account for 80% of them. Only 2 per cent of the services’ users are located
outside the region, whereas 45% operate in the province of Cuneo, and 53% are located in
other areas of the region.

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 Tecnogranda has nine permanent employees, including one general manager and one
mid-level executive. Four temporary employees are working for the organization as project
contractors.
The project of establishing the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia was set up between 1994 and
2008 by a partnership of local authorities and private investors. In 2010 the project stopped
since some of the public sponsors did not secure their own share of funding. After defining a
new strategy based on private funds, in 2011 the real estate company Durabo started the
renovation of the former industrial area "Magneti Marelli" in Pavia as the venue for the Polo
Tecnologico (Interview 6).
In 2012 14 firms set up their offices in the Polo Tecnologico. At the end of that year, 19
companies and 150 employees were settled in the technology park.
Within few years, the number of firms and operators increased, so much so that it was
necessary to provide another building. Nowadays, 46 companies and 320 employees are based
in the Polo Tecnologico.
At the end of 2013 the aggregate revenue of the companies located in the Polo
Tecnologico amounted to 20 million euro (Balduzzi, Ceravolo, Rostan, 2016, p. 8).
To date, the organization has equipped over 5,000 square meters of offices and
research laboratories available to hosted firms, self-employed experts and start-up companies.
Further, common spaces include parking, corporate café, conference hall, meeting and
relaxation rooms, and outdoor gardens and courtyards.
The organisation has 6 permanent employees, including the chief executive officer and
the general manager. Polo Tecnologico di Pavia carries out three main sets of activities:
supplying rooms, equipped laboratories and business services to hosted firms, self-
employed experts and start-up companies (also university spin-offs);
stimulating entrepreneurship through specific training programs, calls for ideas,
meetings with investors and venture capitalists;
facilitating the cooperation between firms: joint participation in European calls,
collaborations to create new products or prototypes, research and innovation
projects.
Unlike many other high-tech parks in Italy and abroad, the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia is
a multi-sector platform. Most of the technology park companies operate in IT related business,
the rest of them are almost equally divided between biotechnology and advanced services
(Interview 6).
In 2013 the Polo Tecnologico launched the “Incubation Program”, with the
collaboration of Mind The Bridge Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco (CA).

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 Regularly every three months the organization selects business ideas from students,
researchers and young entrepreneurs. The selected start-ups can take part in a three-month
business-mentoring program during which the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia provides spaces,
administrative support and mentorship services for new enterprises.
The Polo Tecnologico and the municipality of Pavia also offered to the most promising
entrepreneurs a scholarship to attend the Mind the Bridge Start-up School in San Francisco.
Once a year, during an event called “acceleration day” the start-ups coming from San
Francisco present their projects developments. On the basis of an agreement signed with the
Polo Tecnologico to foster local business development and innovation, this year the University
of Pavia and the Ministry of Economic Development have participated in launching the event.

3.3 Projects
In order to shed light on the activities and relationships of the three organizations, we will
analyse in more detail three of the projects they recently carried out.
The first project is ‘IDEA-foot’ (full name: Innovative DEsign and mAnufacturing
systems for small series production for European FOOTwear companies). The Politecnico
Calzaturiero managed this project together with a local shoe manufacturer, the National
Research Council and the Centre for Studies and Aerospace Activities of the University of
Padua between 2008 and 2012. The project was undertaken within the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Program for Research. It aimed at creating innovative design and
manufacturing systems for small-scale footwear companies (IDEA-foot, 2013).
To face global competition, SMEs must combine the need to reduce time to market
with product diversification and high quality, as well as the handcraft contents of the product.
Thus, the project has developed an automated production line for high quality, small batch
and variegated productions, combining the advantages of craft and standardized methods of
production.
The results of the project are: 1) the definition of innovative methods to standardise
geometrical features during the design of shoes; 2) the development of CAD and CAM
integrated modules to support the easy development of the standardised components of the
shoe and the involved production machines; 3) the realization of the prototype of an
innovative integrated production cell including machines, hand-finishing systems and software
interfaces (IDEA-foot, 2013, p. 3).
The method for the definition of standard modules of shoe components represents a
rigorous way to formalise part of firms’ tacit knowledge. With this methodology, companies
are able to proceed with the standardisation of components as a preliminary step for

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improving design process. In developing the automated line of production, the project was
able to involve different actors at a ‘pragmatic boundary’, combining different specialized
domains, interests and kinds of knowledge in a setting where the common goal was the
finalization of the prototype.
The Politecnico Calzaturiero supported companies in the definition of the standards of
geometrical features of shoe components through the formalisation of tacit knowledge.
Afterwards it implemented the CAD plug-in for standards and participated in the definition of
the new integrated production cell.
In this project, the Politecnico Calzaturiero acted as a bridge between technicians and
producers, representing the typical knowledge needs of SMEs to the former. By interacting
with local, national and international universities and research centres, the organisation has
been able to generate new knowledge, develop new practices, share them with local
producers and transform the new cognitive abilities into routine training courses and
consulting services.
The second project is ‘F&F Biopack’ (full name: Feed & Food packaging: biodegradable
films for the environmental sustainability of the agro-food supply chain). The chemical
company Novamont managed this project together with Tecnogranda and the University of
Turin between 2011-2013. The regional government of Piedmont co-funded this research
program with the European Regional Development Fund.
The project aimed to develop innovative biodegradable food packaging materials with
possible applications in the zoo technical industry as well as in the field of fruits and vegetables
for human consumption.
The extension of the shelf life of highly perishable small fruits and the preservation of
their organoleptic and nutritional properties are important challenges for the agro-food cluster
companies. Similarly, plastic waste reduction may be a primary goal for the packaging industry
in the next future, considering the growing attention of governments and consumers to the
environmental sustainability.
The project involved research institutes, universities, associations, cooperatives,
companies and farms within the region.
The project produced the following results:
1) Realization of the prototype of innovative biodegradable silage sheets, and the
organoleptic analysis of ensiled products with new materials;
2) Creation of biodegradable manufactured articles for storing small fruits having
equivalent or better performances than plastic articles, and the organoleptic analysis of stored
products;

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 3) Study and development of composting processes of biodegradable wastes, in order
to reduce plastic scrap in the agro-food supply chain;
4) Development of new analysis techniques of biodegradable products in both
laboratory and field;
5) Implementation of innovative biodegradable and compostable materials with
barriers against gases.
Within this R&D programme, Tecnogranda defined the morphological properties of
biodegradable films by electron microscopy analysis and carried out the organoleptic analysis
of foods checking the safety of the packaging with a proper simulation.
Indeed, in order to test the shelf life of each fruit and vegetable product, the
assessment needed specific timing and conditions.
In the project Tecnogranda provided a proper setting where different stakeholders of
the network and different knowledge holders met. Through laboratory tests and simulation, it
combined the specialized knowledge of universities and large corporate research centres with
the practical knowledge of users.
Thus, Tecnogranda acted as an interface able to reduce the cognitive, institutional and
cultural distance hindering the cooperation between different actors of the PTK process.
Particularly, the organization tested the prototypes projected in university and corporate
laboratories in order to transform them into suitable products for farmers, and local fruit and
vegetables producers.
The third project is NISTAS (full name: Non-Invasive Screening Of The Status Of The
Vascular System). The NISTAS project aims at developing a novel medical instrument
VascuLight (VL) for the quick and contactless screening of the status of the vascular system of
human patients. NISTAS responds to the need for fast, reproducible, and widely available
measurement of the arterial stiffness that is a recognized predictor of cardiovascular risk and
mortality, and a potential marker for monitoring the beneficial effects of medical treatments
for arterial diseases. In May 2014 a pan European consortium launched the project that has
been funded within the Seventh Framework Program for Research (FP7).
The NISTAS partners are universities, SMEs and research centres from Italy, Ireland and
Switzerland.
One of the SMEs that are developing VascuLight is Julight, a University of Pavia spin-off
company located into the Polo Tecnologico. Julight was founded in 2011 and promotes the
smart use of photonic technologies and laser light by combining optic-electronic integration,
miniaturization and cost-effectiveness with applications to industrial and bio-medical fields
(NISTAS, 2015).

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 Three other partners of the NISTAS project are from Pavia: The University of Pavia, the
Policlinico San Matteo and Eudax. Each partner performs a research, technology and
development role in the creation of the innovative medical device.
Eudax was established in 2005 with the primary objective of providing strategic and
operative support for drug and medical device development to biopharmaceutical companies
and scientific institutions. Since 2012 Eudax has its main headquarter at the Polo Tecnologico.
As a partner with clinical and regulatory expertise, Eudax has guided the consortium towards
full clinical tests, with the goal of validating the effectiveness of the proposed method for
vascular disease and risk diagnosis. Eudax has also developed a complete path towards CE
certification of the instrument, although the SMEs of the consortium did not immediately
require European certification of the prototype to leave open the possibility of bringing further
improvements to the medical device.
The Polo Tecnologico of Pavia fostered the collaboration between two companies
belonging to different, but complementary, technology areas, like Julight and Eudax. «When
the Technological Pole was going to open, the managers of the technology park organized
some meetings with hosted companies, and I think it was there that we met Eudax» says one
of the managers of university spin-offs involved in the project (Inteview 7).
On the other side, the University of Pavia and the Policlinico San Matteo played an
important role in developing the project. In fact, close relationships with hospital and
university institutions helped to implement clinical studies and to setup the VascuLight
prototype. Moreover, the local Ethical Committee of the Policlinico San Matteo evaluated the
planning of the first part of the clinical study (NISTAS, 2015).
The organization managing the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia is not directly involved in the
project. Nevertheless, it has a key-role in implementing the proper setting to carry out
projects, involving actors, providing different kind of instruments, as well as material and
immaterial resources. All key informants we have interviewed (Interview 6, 7, 8) maintain that
the Polo Tecnologico does not just supply the rooms where enterprises operate, but act as a
relevant partner for enterprises (inside and outside the technology park), research institutions
and business associations. It provides a proper setting where innovative businesses from
different sectors, researchers and technicians can meet together, share knowledge, and
cooperate to develop new projects. The organization, although recently established, is strongly
embedded within the local institutional and socio-economic environment, as well as within a
wide network of national and international links. Thus firms located in the technology park can
easily connect with local research institutions, business associations, banks and public
authorities, as well as national and international economic players.

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4. Conclusions: Comparative analysis
4.1 Differences
The three cases differ in terms of sector, territory, legal status, core business and type of
organization.
Foremost, the three organizations carry out their activities in different areas of
expertise. The Politecnico Calzaturiero provides training and research services to firms
operating in the footwear manufacturing industry. Tecnogranda is a research and innovation
centre specialized in the agro-food industry. Finally, the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia manages a
technology park hosting innovative firms from different sectors: IT, biotech, advanced services.
As we have seen previously, it is possible to find differences also looking at the kinds of
territory in which the organizations are located. The Politecnico Calzaturiero is based in one of
the most important Italian industrial districts. Although located outside the industrial district’s
area, the University of Padua is just about 10 kilometres far from this training institution.
Tecnogranda is based in Dronero, a small village at the beginning of an alpine valley in the
province of Cuneo. The innovation centre is about 20 kilometres from the University of Turin
campus in Cuneo. Moreover, in the same region there are three public universities: the
University of Turin, the Politecnico of Turin and the Eastern Piedmont University. The Polo
Tecnologico of Pavia is located in an historical university-town, which is itself part of the
broader Milan metropolitan area.
The three organizations are also different by legal status and core business. The
Politecnico Calzaturiero is a mainly private consortium, controlled by the local footwear
manufacturers association. Although it is a teaching-centred organization, it also carries out
consulting and research and innovation services for firms. The integration of these different
activities is a remarkable peculiarity of the organization. Tecnogranda is a public-private joint
venture controlled by a public shareholder. The core business of the organization is to provide
research services and innovation support to firms. The Polo Tecnologico of Pavia is a private
organization owned by a real estate company. Its core business is to supply rooms and logistic
services to existing companies and start-ups. The organization carries out also some activities
linked to its core business, such as the training program for new entrepreneurs developed with
the collaboration of Mind the Bridge Foundation.

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4.2 Similarities

The similarities between the cases concern contexts, organizations and projects.
The three cases are characterised by a quest for innovation coming from the local
productive system. Although in different ways, local actors (firms, employers’ associations,
institutions) have been able to detect, legitimate and communicate it. In every case we find
the presence of organized clusters of firms connected by a mix of cooperative and competitive
relationships.
The selected contexts appear to be local systems equipped with similar resources.
Particularly, the more clearly involved in the PTK are:
- cognitive resources, such as tacit and explicit knowledge embodied in people
and/or organizations, higher education, training and research institutions, other
forms of know-how circulation and reproduction within specialized local contexts;
- normative resources, such as the actors’ legitimacy, and shared cultural and
economic identities;
- economic resources, such as funds and credit that allow actors to acquire the
necessary instruments to initiate and organize the process.
The organizations share some common internal characteristics related to the their
operation and functioning.
The first of them is the ability to provide physical settings and instruments. They have
implemented physical settings where actors can meet, share knowledge and do things
together, like classrooms, conference halls or equipped laboratories.
A further common characteristic is the ability to manage the process and to set shared
goals to which actors involved are jointly committed.
Each organization has a clearly identifiable promoter. The footwear manufacturers’
Association of Riviera del Brenta set up the institution involving relevant actors and providing
the main financial support. The regional government of Piedmont promoted the establishment
of Tecnogranda and controlled it until now being the major shareholder. The Polo Tecnologico
of Pavia was established by Durabo, which owns and manages it through its affiliate company
“Polo Tecnologico”.
These special organizations are significantly embedded in their local context. They are
intertwined within a dense network of promoters and supporters, particularly local employers’
associations, firms, universities, public authorities. Looking at the composition of the governing
and technical bodies of the organizations, we can note that they include relevant local actors.
In order to manage such complex relations and share strategic decisions with stakeholders,

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Politecnico Calzaturiero and Tecnogranda set up special committees composed of
representatives of firms, employers’ associations, and universities. The Polo Tecnologico of
Pavia, while not having this kind of governing or technical body, stably interact with local
employers’ associations, firms, schools, universities, public authorities, centres for training,
research and innovation, banks, and venture capitalists. Such relationships are formalized in a
number of projects and initiatives jointly promoted with these partners.
Finally, the last internal common characteristic is the flat organisational model. The
organisations have few permanent employees and several external collaborators, and the
teams running these organizations are scarcely hierarchical.
The three organizations also share some common characteristics associated with their
external relations.
First of all, they have been able to connect to other organizations and to facilitate the
creation of local and extra-local networks. More particularly, all organizations have the ability
to bring together different knowledge holders (researchers, technicians, producers, users, etc.)
and to connect different specialized domains. In different contexts and sectors of
specialization, they act as intermediary between universities and firms, for example
representing to universities firms’ interests and needs as well as recognising universities as
partners and sources of relevant resources within a pragmatic setting, such as the process of
finalization of a prototype.
In doing so, each of these organizations acts as an organisational relé (Crozier &
Friedberg, 1977, pp. 141–142), that is an entity able to connect structures that normally are
not connected.
Looking at the projects we can observe that they use the EU framework programme as
a source of funding.
The projects clearly point out some common characteristics of the three organizations
related to the PTK, which is implicit in their daily activities.
Following Carlile (2004), we can see that the process of knowledge transformation
occurs at a ‘pragmatic boundary’, that is where actors with different interests meet. The
analysed projects, in fact, were all related to the development of prototypes, shared artefacts
and methods.
In this respect, we can observe that the three organizations share as a common
feature the ability to support actors in negotiating interests, expressing different functional
goals and transforming knowledge. Therefore, it is possible to recognize some characteristics
that the literature attributes to the PTK process as key elements of these projects.

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 More particularly, the projects imply: 1) the exchange of both codified and tacit
knowledge; 2) the translation from codified to tacit knowledge and vice versa; 3) the active
involvement of different knowledge holders; 4) the co-presence of both academic and non-
academic knowledge holders; 5) the provision of physical settings where mobile people can
meet.
About the latter, we notice that the double role of some actors is really important. In
the Politecnico Calzaturiero’s case, for example, enterprise technicians are also acting as
teachers in the training institution. In this way they can share their practical knowledge and
experiences with students and researchers. In the Polo Tecnologico of Pavia’s case, academics
from the University are also entrepreneurs in the spin-off companies hosted by the technology
park. Thanks to their double role, they are able to bridge the gap between firms and university
departments, because they speak both languages and are familiar with both the ‘institutional
logics’ (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012).

5. Implications (and limitations)

5.1 Research implications

The results of the three cases studies suggest that the PTK approach is a valuable way to deal
with the relationship between universities and industry, less simplistic and more realistic of the
traditional TT approach. They also point out the importance of special organisations that are
neither university units nor firms as interfaces between universities and regional economies.
The comparison of the three cases allows us to identify some common features of
these special organisations that can be interpreted as organisational conditions for the PTK.
They are locally embedded, connect local to global, activate a circular relationship between
operating activities and the creation of useful relations, and display similar organisational
fields. As a consequence, these organisations are especially able to mobilise resources,
mediate interests, and develop networks.
These findings contribute to the creation of an analytical framework that can be
applied to the study of the organisational dimensions of the PTK process fostering the
discovery of other special organisations acting as interfaces between universities and regional
economies in our country.
They also point out some limitations of an approach based on the role of special
organisations in activating and mediating the PTK process between university and industry. It

19
may be that the discovery of special organisations acting as interfaces between universities
and regional economies depends on the peculiar characteristics of both the Italian productive
system and higher education system. As a consequence, two further lines of inquiry can be
developed. On the one hand, it is possible that special organisations acting as interfaces
indeed exist and operate under different contextual conditions. This could be the case of the
Fraunhofer Institutes operating in German cities. On the other hand, it is possible that either
university organisational units, such as Cambridge Enterprise at the University of Cambridge,
or corporate universities at private companies can carry out the mediating function between
universities and industry.

5.2 Social implications

A critical view on TT based on the concept of the PTK may also have practical implications. At
least in Italy, the comparison between the three case studies offers to different stakeholders
some suggestions for their policies. The discovery of special organisations acting as interfaces
between universities and regional economies suggest university to search for them and to
connect to them as they represent a valuable resource for university third mission and for the
role university can play in the innovation process. It also suggests to both local authorities and
firms a possible way to strengthen the local economy and to foster innovation locally. Finally, it
suggests to the national government a possible way to foster innovation on a large scale
supporting the operations of organisations that are able to mediate effectively between higher
education and research institutions, and firms.

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Acknowledgments: The three case studies have been carried out within the frame of the project
„Universities, innovation and regional economies‟, supported by the Ministry of Education and four Italian
universities (Programmi di ricerca scientifica di rilevante interesse nazionale, 2010–2011).

Biographical Details:

Giacomo Balduzzi is post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences - University
of Pavia. He collaborates with the Interdepartmental Centre of Studies and Researches on Higher
Education Systems (CIRSIS). He has taught at the University of Pavia and at the Master in Local
Development at the University of Piemonte Orientale. He also coordinates a project of deliberative
democracy experimentation in Novara. He graduated in Sociology at the Cattolica University of Milan
(2009) and earned a PhD in Economic Sociology at the University of Pavia (2014).

Michele Rostan is Associated Professor of Economic Sociology and Director of the Centre for Study and
Research on Higher Education Systems (CIRSIS) at the University of Pavia, Italy. He is member of the
interuniversity centre UNIRES - Italian Centre for Research on Universities and Higher Education Systems,
the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), the Editorial Advisory Board of “Higher
Education. The International Journal of Higher Education Research”, and of the Editorial Board of “Studies
in Higher Education”, a Journal of the Society for Research into Higher Education. He graduated in
Economics at the University of Pavia (1987) and earned a PhD in Sociology at the joint Doctoral
programme of the Universities of Milan, Pavia and Turin (1992).

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