Science parks and university–industry collaboration in Malaysia

Studies have shown that companies with university links usually have higher productivity rates than comparable companies that do not have such links. They are also better off in terms of market share, quality of products and services and cost competitiveness. Thus the link between firms and universities is considered fundamental to the concept of science parks. Science park firms are generally known to conduct more R&D than off-park firms apparently because of the close interaction with local universities. This gives firms the leverage to exploit the knowledge spill-over generated by universities. This paper is an attempt to examine the effectiveness of science parks as a strategy to promote university–industry collaboration in Malaysia. Its findings show a reasonably high level of interactions between the science park (on-park) and off-park firms, and local universities. Overall, science park firms have more links with universities than off-park firms, although the difference is not shown to be statistically significant.