Transfer of Agricultural and Biological Sciences Research to Patents: The Case of EU-27

Abstract

Agriculture as an economic activity and agronomy as a science must provide food for a constantly growing population. Research in this field is therefore becoming increasingly essential. Much of the research is carried out in academic institutions and then developed in the private sector. Patents do not have to be issued through scientific institutions. Patents from scientific institutions are intended to have a certain economic return on the investment made in research when the patent is transferred to industry. A bibliometric analysis was carried out using the Scopus and SciVal databases. This study analyses all the research carried out in the field of agronomy and related sciences (Agricultural and Biological Sciences category of Scopus database) by EU-27 countries, which has been cited in at least one international patent. The data show that out of about 1 million published works only about 28,000 have been used as a source of patents. This study highlights the main countries and institutions in terms of this transfer. Among these, Germany, France and Spain stand out in absolute terms, but considering the degree of specialization. Regarding their specialization the institution ranking is led by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (58%), AgroParisTech (52%), Wageningen University & Research (48%), and INRAE (38%). It also analyses which journals used for this transfer are most important. For these publications more than 90% of the articles have had a higher-than-expected citation level for the year of publication, the type of publication and the discipline in which they are categorized. The most-obtained research fields can be distinguished as those related to genetics or mo-lecular biology, those related to specific foods, such as cheeses, milk, breads or oils, and, thirdly, the group covering food-related constituents such as caseins, probiotics, glutens, or starch.