The study of the communication patterns of Boston-Cambridge regional biotech firms to universities

This paper analyzes data from a study which focused on understanding the informal scientific communication network among Biotechnology firms in the Boston-Cambridge Biotech area. A previous study (Allen, et. al., 2009) provided an overview of the network, how the firms were connected to one another and the frequency of the communications. The analysis for this study focuses on the firms and their communication patterns to the universities - to better understand the potentially continuing role of the universities. The goal of the study is to analyze the factors that influenced communication patterns. The following factors were studied: size, age, type of firm and degrees of centrality. In conclusion, the study finds the universities are tightly integrated into the biotech network. Some firms chose to communicate only with the universities. In addition, we find size and age to have the greatest influence on this. Finally, degrees of centrality also play a significant role in the tendency of research scientists within firms to communicate with universities.