This paper investigates two facets of the science base - industry linkages. We develop a rationale to conceptualize U-I interactions in terms of the type of contractual agreement and the degree of finalization. This allows us to distinguish between four modes of U-I interaction: firm creation, technology transfer, co-production, and response modes. We then examine whether scientific stardom and research interdisciplinarity predict the propensity of scientists to interact with any of the four interaction modes. Our empirical results suggest significant effects of scientific impact and interdisciplinarity on university-industry interactions, but largely dependent on the interaction mode. Scientific impact has significant positive effect on technology transfer only beyond a particular threshold; it has a negative effect on the response mode; and no significant effect on firm creation or co-production modes. In contrast, interdisciplinary research has a strong positive impact on the two entrepreneurial-related modes: firm creation and technology transfer. We draw on a sample of 1,180 scientists from the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the largest public research organization in Spain, covering all scientific fields - physics, engineering, biomedicine, social sciences and humanities. We combine primary data from a large scale survey, bibliometric data on scientists’ publications and administrative data on scientists’ past interactions with industry.

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