130,762 research outputs found
Ownership and Execution of Regional Corporate R&D - Methodological Hints from the Italian Case
No full textThe paper aims to provide methodological suggestions on the measurement of regional corporate R&D, by using a new approach to disentangle corporate R&D by region of ownership and of execution. We make distinction in the concepts: what we call “region of ownership” is where the R&D performer has its registered office and “region of execution” is where the R&D actually takes place. This duplicity allows for the calculation of three regional indicators: regional R&D Autonomy, regional R&D Inward and regional R&D Outward. Using micro-data for Italy in the period 2001-2005, a high level of R&D concentration in a few Italian regions is confirmed; furthermore, information on the strengths and weaknesses of Italian regions are added, addressing regions’ R&D performance as not univocal but representing a complex phenomenon. The growing importance of regional figures at the EU level asks for a more refined overview of economic phenomena, included Science and Technology ones. Given its general approach and the reference to official statistics, the methodology is considered replicable at international level and overtime
Innovation policies in the Adriatic Region
No full textThe chapter provides an overview of Innovation policies adopted across the Adriatic Region. Policies are broken down by a novel taxonomy that distinguishes among R&D, Human resources, Collaboration and Innovation Capabilities policies. The overview of policies confirms a very high degree of heterogeneity across Adriatic countries and provides details on some common problematic topics: the missing critical mass of research and innovation in many countries of the Region; the importance of collaboration among countries and organisations; the lack of continuity in policies. Finally, the chapter recalls some best practices of innovation policies identified within the PACINNO project
Measuring the internationalisation of EU corporate R&D: a novel complementary use of statistical sources
No full textThe report summarises the main results of a research activity aimed at testing a novel approach for the measurement of EU business R&D internationalisation. Such approach is based on the complementary use of two different sources of data: on the one hand, statistical data from private R&D expenditure taken from national surveys (BERD); on the other hand, data collected from companies' annual reports and accounts (as in the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard). The main objectives of the study were: i) to explore the methodological rationale for comparing the two sets of data; ii) to test the robustness of the novel methodology through an analysis applied to four EU countries (Belgium, Finland, Germany and Italy); iii) to provide indications of possible further research and follow up activities.
The main results from the project are as follows:
- BERD and Scoreboard values, though addressing slightly different concepts, are comparable and can be used in a complementary way.
- Data regarding top EU R&D performers (that is, companies included in Scoreboard rankings who are the active part of the R&D internationalisation process) have to be considered from the starting point of such complementary use, instead of as final data at the country level resulting from official statistics.
- Using top R&D performers� global values and adding aggregate values from national R&D statistics allows novel insights on the R&D internationalisation process to be given, at least for the four EU countries involved.
- Further research could rely on the forthcoming Euro-Group Register under development at EUROSTAT, to obtain a clear view of intra-EU cross-country R&D flows.JRC.DDG.J.3 - Knowledge for Growt
The cross border R&D activity of Italian business firms
No full textUsing data from the ISTAT-RS1 Survey we explore inward and outward R&D activities of different categories of firms resident in Italy in 2001-2010. From this perspective we provide detailed evidence of the role played by this country in the global creation and transmission of technology. First, foreign owned multinationals are the most active in cross-border transactions of knowledge but hold a low and decreasing share in national R&D expenditure. This trend reveals on the one hand that the Italian economy is a poorer and poorer attractor of high value added investments from abroad; and on the other hand that national companies, and particularly local SMEs not belonging to international groups, have significantly increased their R&D efforts over the past decade. Second, although outward expenditures of Italian companies increased substantially, R&D performed abroad remains a minor component of business research activities, and is due to a small number of firms investing in a few destination countries. We argue that this paucity of outward R&D activity might hinder both “asset exploiting” and “asset seeking” strategies of Italian firms. Third, we find a strong positive correlation between outward R&D and other innovative activities, including domestic research and R&D commissioned to foreign affiliates. By contrast, in the case of foreign owned firms active in Italy, we find that outward R&D is negatively correlated with intra-group technical cooperation
La ricerca industriale nelle regioni italiane. Dinamiche recenti e nuovi indicatori
No full textObiettivo del presente articolo è descrivere l’andamento della ricerca industriale svolta nelle regioni italiane nel recente passato. Utilizzando un dataset di imprese attive in ricerca e sviluppo (R&S), secondo l’indagine statistica Istat RS-1, vengono proposti approfondimenti su alcune dimensioni solitamente assenti nel dibattito sulla R&S regionale: la differenza fra proprietà ed esecuzione della R&S privata; la plurilocalizzazione degli investimenti in più regioni; la caratterizzazione internazionale della R&S italiana. Sulla base di queste dimensioni, vengono costruiti tre nuovi indicatori che, presi in considerazione sia singolarmente che congiuntamente, forniscono un’immagine completa del differente coinvolgimento delle regioni italiane nella R&S privata e possono offrire supporto analitico alle scelte di politica in materia di sviluppo e innovazione a livello regionale
R&D endowments at home driving R&D internationalisation: Evidence from the Italian business R&D survey
No full textThis study aims at unpacking the internal R&D determinants spurring a firm to invest in R&D abroad, that is owning R&D performing affiliates abroad. Differently from previous literature – mainly focusing on country level determinants as well as on motivations for the location choice of foreign R&D – we make a shift in the observation point. In particular, we dig deeper into the characteristics of firms' intra-mural R&D and the different types of R&D outsourcing to assess their association with R&D internationalisation. On the one hand, we account for the different types of R&D employees (share of researchers and technicians on R&D employees) and R&D performance (basic versus applied research; R&D performed in laboratories rather than in production facilities); on the other hand, we focus on a specific type of R&D outsourcing (to non-affiliated foreign partners, that is the “contract offshoring R&D”). The analysis is performed on an unbalanced panel of 33,476 observations referring to all Italian R&D performers over the 2003–2010 period. Our findings reveal that a more structured organisation of R&D at home (e.g. performing R&D in dedicated laboratories) and the propensity to outsource R&D to foreign non-affiliated partners are associated with a higher share of R&D internationalisation
Firm heterogeneity, absorptive capacity and technical linkages with external parties in Italy
No full textWhile it is widely acknowledged that internal R&D is a fundamental source of the ability to absorb, select and use external knowledge, severe data limitations prevent from capturing differences across firms in this respect. Using a novel dataset supplied by the Italian Bureau of Statistics, we highlight that, when controlling for internal R&D efforts, not all firms are equally prone to gain access to external technology, and to the knowledge provided by universities in particular. We find that firms which do not only perform R&D activities but also belong to a group exhibit a higher propensity to access external knowledge by either contracting out R&D or cooperating with external parties, as compared to independent firms that are not organized into groups. This premium persists when controlling for different measures of internal R&D efforts. Furthermore, the differential in the propensity to access external knowledge is particularly high in the case of R&D performers belonging to foreign groups, i.e. Italian affiliates of foreign owned companies; and it is even higher in the case of the few Italian firms that have R&D activities abroad. The relative dis-advantage of independent firms, which represent the bulk of the Italian industry and include most small and medium sized enterprises, appears to be less of an obstacle in the case of linkages with universities, especially when R&D contracting out is considered
Multinational firms and the creation of technological linkages in Italy
No full textUsing empirical evidence from the Italian R&D survey, we assess the ability of
multinational firms in setting-up technological linkages (Extra-muros R&D and R&D cooperation). We find that Italian multinationals are more prone to perform
Extra-muros R&D, while foreign multinationals are better at developing R&D
cooperation. However, selecting only the linkages with local counterparts, we find that foreign multinationals have no advantage vis-à-vis Italian firms; while multinationals still have some advantages in setting-up R&D cooperation with local
universities. Results suggest that foreign multinationals can generally exploit “economies of common governance” when setting-up technical linkages, but they
face relative disadvantages in terms of embeddedness in local systems
Multinationals and R&D cooperation: empirical evidence from the Italian R&D survey
No full textUsing data on R&D performers active in Italy, we explore the effects of multinationality on the propensity to R&D cooperation. A fundamental departure from previous empirical literature is that we do not consider only subsidiaries of foreign MNEs but also domestic owned MNEs active in the observed country. First, the whole subset of firms active in Italy represented by multinationals – both foreign and domestic MNEs – exhibits the highest propensity to R&D cooperation. Second, foreign MNEs are better at R&D cooperating with foreign partners, but it is domestic owned MNEs that exhibit the highest propensity to R&D collaboration with local firms. By contrast, foreign MNEs have much the same propensity to enter local R&D cooperation as non-MNEs. This might reveal that the multinationality advantages of foreign MNEs – their superior technology and economies of common governance – are more than compensated by their “liabilities of foreignness” due to the extra-costs and risks of dealing with a relatively unfamiliar context. Third, when considering international R&D cooperation, foreign MNEs exhibit the highest premium, while domestic owned MNEs appear to have a lower propensity to collaborate abroad. Altogether, our results for Italy show that it is not foreignness but the specific combination of advantages and disadvantages of multinationality that explain R&D cooperation with both local and international partners
Innovazione e investimenti in entrata in Europa: prime evidenze a livello settoriale
No full textNo abstrac
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