University-industry collaborations have become increasingly commonplace throughout academia. In many countries, research and innovation policy focuses on promoting and facilitating interaction between academics and firms, with the expectation of significant economic and scientific benefits. However, there may be socially undesirable consequences from collaboration such as increased secrecy and skewing of research agendas. While this is a well researched area, established research on how university-industry collaborations may affect the direction, scientific impact, and public dissemination of scientific knowledge is often limited by a problem of attribution in terms of the relationship between university-industry collaboration and its outcomes. Through empirical analyses of university-industry projects and publication data, this dissertation examines how the production and public dissemination of scientific knowledge is affected by the participation of industry in academic research within university-industry projects. The dissertation develops new methods and datasets at the project and individual level. It connects actual instances of collaborations to scientific outcomes and focuses on disentangling details about the nature and impact of university-industry collaboration on academic research. The findings provide an empirical basis for discussing whether the focus on promoting interaction between academics and firms may have unintended or socially undesirable consequences for scientific knowledge production.

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