The effects of university-level policies on women’s participation in academic patenting in Italy

A growing stream of the academic literature has investigated the factors that hamper the participation of women researchers in patenting and commercialization activities; however, limited research has examined the policies that address these forms of the gender gap. In this paper, we explore whether the ownership arrangements of university patents and the presence of university-level support measures such as technology transfer offices and linkages with science and technology parks are positively associated with women’s involvement in academic patenting. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 2538 academic patents by Italian inventors in the period 1996–2007. The results of our analyses highlight a positive role of university policies in addressing the gender gap in technology transfer activities.