Abstract

Many national research and innovation systems include higher education institutions and public research organizations (PRO) with different mandates and tasks. This paper investigates what happens to the relationship between a university and a PRO when they are increasingly pushed towards fulfilling similar tasks and functions. We investigate this through a historical case study of the relationship between a university and a PRO within the field of science and technology and draw on concepts from the institutional logics and institutional complexity literatures to frame the study. We find that in the early phase of the relationship, institutional complexity was handled through a strategy of “structural differentiation” where the university outsourced the commercial logic to the PRO, but in practice the two operated as integrated organizations. In the later phases, growing external demands and internal developments led to a “blending” strategy where the university reincorporated the commercial science logic. This had a fundamental impact on the relationship between the two organizations in terms of increased competition and blurring of roles, which led to increased structural and operational separation. Our study underlines the importance of considering wider, and often unintended, ramifications of policies on the research and innovation system as a whole.