Abstract:

The development of research and innovation at the regional level has a positive influence in the region and in the European research capacity as a whole: liaison with the industrial areas of development, creating and supporting centres of excellence, creation of science and technology parks, mobility of researchers… Therefore, one of the priorities trends in innovation policy in Europe focuses on cooperation to be established between business and higher education institutions. At the same time, tries to boost innovation in European SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). It is expected that a more effective cooperation between business sector and higher education will lead to an improved performance of the national and regional economy and even generate new jobs.
The proposal that appears in this abstract is on the Galicia context – region that is in the northwest of Spain - and is based on the importance of promoting the relations between business sector and institutions of Higher Education across the transfer of knowledge between both sectors.
The aim of our research project is identifying the indicators of innovation of the business sector as well as provides data of interaction between business and higher education institutions. With this purpose, two surveys have been elaborated in order to gather information in the one hand about the perceptions business sector and in the other hand the perceptions of the researchers of the universities. In this paper we study the first. In fact the Questionnaire “Innovation and Transference Enterprise-University” covers topics so relevant as: (1) Research, Development and Innovation; (2) Technological Innovation; (3) Relations between business and society; (4) Relations between business and university, (5) Production, Marketing and Intellectually Property Exploitation (IPE). The questionnaire was postal, e-mail and voluntary and was sent to a sample of enterprises of all sizes and sectors in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.
In this paper we analyze some results of the perceptions of directors and managers of a representative sample of Galician enterprises.

Keywords:

innovation, business, university, knowledge transfer, galicia.