
Dr. Albert Link
Professor
Virginia Batte Phillips Distinguished Professor
Department of Economics

Background
Research Areas: Technology and Innovation Policy, Technology Transfer, Policy and Program Evaluation, Entrepreneurship
Albert N. Link is the Virginia Batte Phillips Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). He received the B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Richmond (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Ph.D. degree in economics from Tulane University. After receiving the Ph.D., he joined the economics faculty at Auburn University, was later Scholar-in-Residence at Syracuse University, and then he joined the economics faculty at UNCG in 1982. In 2019, Link was awarded the title and honorary position of Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, U.K.
Professor Link is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Technology Transfer. He is also co-editor of Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship and founder/editor of Annals of Science and Technology Policy.
Among his more than 70 authored and edited books, some of the more recent ones are: Invention, Innovation and U.S. Federal Laboratories (Edward Elgar, 2020), Technology Transfer and U.S. Public Sector Innovation (Edward Elgar, 2020), Collaborative Research in the United States: Policies and Institutions for Cooperation among Firms (Routledge, 2020), Sources of Knowledge and Entrepreneurial Behavior (University of Toronto Press, 2019), Handbook for University Technology Transfer (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Public Sector Entrepreneurship: U.S. Technology and Innovation Policy (Oxford University Press, 2015), Bending the Arc of Innovation: Public Support of R&D in Small, Entrepreneurial Firms (Palgrave Macmillan 2013), Valuing an Entrepreneurial Enterprise (Oxford University Press, 2012), Public Goods, Public Gains: Calculating the Social Benefits of Public R&D (Oxford University Press, 2011), Employment Growth from Public Support of Innovation in Small Firms (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2011), and Government as Entrepreneur (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Professor Link’s other research endeavors consist of more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, as well as numerous government reports. His scholarship has appeared in such journals as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Economica, Research Policy, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, the European Economic Review, Small Business Economics, Scientometrics, ISSUES in Science and Technology, Scientometrics, and the Journal of Technology Transfer.
Professor Link’s public service includes being a member of the National Research Council’s research team that conducted the 2010 evaluation of the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Based on that assignment, he testified before the U.S. Congress in April 2011 on the economic benefits associated with the SBIR program. Link also served from 2007 to 2012 as a U.S. Representative to the United Nations (in Geneva) in the capacity of co-vice chairperson of the Team of Specialists on Innovation and Competitiveness Policies Initiative for the Economic Commission for Europe. In October 2018, Link delivered the European Commission Distinguished Scholar Lecture at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (in Seville).
Research and Awards
Governance Mechanisms Enabling Inter-Organizational Adaptation: Lessons from Grand Challenge R&D Programs
Hayter, C.,
2020
Science and Public Policy
47: 271-282
On the Transfer of Technology from Universities: The Impact of Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 on the Institutionalization of University Research
van Hasselt, M.,
2019
European Economic Review
119: 472-481
Invention, Innovation, and U.S. Federal Laboratories
Book
Invention, Innovation, and U.S. Federal Laboratories
Dr. Albert Link
Edward Elgar
2020
Public Sector Entrepreneurship: U.S. Technology and Innovation Policy
Book
Public Sector Entrepreneurship: U.S. Technology and Innovation Policy
Dr. Albert Link, Dr. Dennis Leyden
Oxford University Press
2015
The European Commission Distinguished Scholar Lecture
2018
Joint Research Center, Spain
Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology, “Small Business Innovation Research Program,”
2011
U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology
Economic Impacts of University Research Parks
Economic Impacts of University Research Parks
$102,000: $51,000 from EDA and $51,000 university matching effort
Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
2016-2017
University Research Parks and the Innovative Performance of Park Firms
University Research Parks and the Innovative Performance of Park Firms
$190,910
National Science Foundation, Science of Science and Innovation Policy Division
2008-2010