Impact assessment of subsidized academia—industry cooperation in Russia

In this article, we analyze the policy of direct subsidizing of academia— industry cooperation projects in Russia. Using the difference in differences method and companies’ microdata, we assess the policy impact on the change in the revenue growth rates of 133 subsidy recipient companies in 2010—2022. It is established that subsidies have the most noticeable impact on small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) and companies from high-tech industries. Additionally, using logit regression based on surveys in 2017 and 2022, we determine that research organizations which have used this measure are characterized by the presence of young researchers, access to foreign scientific and technical information databases, and experience in academia—industry cooperation. At the same time, organizations are not interested in this subsidy if they already used other financial instruments (for example, grants from research foundations), had orders from state corporations, and a high level of international scientific interactions. Based on the results of the study, recommendations have been developed to improve public policy by differentiating mechanisms to support academia—industry cooperation for large companies and SMEs, concentrating resources on high-tech industries and strengthening universities’ access to young talent and global knowledge databases.