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Graduate hiring as a human capital outcome of university-industry innovation collaboration

Gerwin Evers & Christian Richter Østergaard

Industry and Innovation2025https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2025.2482040article
AJG 3ABDC A
Weight
0.48

Abstract

Firms can strengthen their competitive position in the knowledge-based economy by collaborating with universities on innovation. Beyond generating knowledge, such collaborations can also offer a strategic approach for firms to access and recruit highly skilled talent, particularly university graduates. This study explores the impact of university-industry innovation collaborations on firms’ hiring of university graduates. Using genetic matching–a robust, algorithm-driven matching method that optimises covariate balance–on data from the Danish Community Innovation Survey and longitudinal firm-level employment microdata, the study constructs a counterfactual to assess how university collaborations influence the hiring of high-skilled labour. The results show that firms involved in university-industry collaborations increase their recruitment of graduates, particularly those from their university partners and among PhD graduates. These findings highlight that collaborating with a university not only supports knowledge transfer but also reshapes firms’ workforce composition, supports building absorptive capacity and fostering long-term innovation capabilities.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2025.2482040

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@article{gerwin2025,
  title        = {{Graduate hiring as a human capital outcome of university-industry innovation collaboration}},
  author       = {Gerwin Evers & Christian Richter Østergaard},
  journal      = {Industry and Innovation},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2025.2482040},
}

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Evidence weight

0.48

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.41 × 0.4 = 0.16
M · momentum0.63 × 0.15 = 0.09
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.