Disconnected research and development: The (temporary) spatial patterns of innovation

Project Information

DISCO

Grant agreement ID: 101023886

DOI

10.3030/101023886

Project closed

EC signature date 30 April 2021

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 November 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 124 211,36

EU contribution

€ 124 211,36

Coordinated by

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DISCO (Disconnected research and development: The (temporary) spatial patterns of innovation)

Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2022-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Scholars recently observe an increasing spatial disconnect between research and development (R&D) activities within global firms, in particular from emerging markets. These firms off-shore their research activities to centers of state-of-the-art knowledge while they might keep product development closer to their original locations. This is of major concern to our society because this spatial split channels global knowledge flows and affects the ability of regions to produce innovative output. This project aims at understanding the dynamics of spatial (re-)organization of R&D in relation to firm development. Because we still know too little about how stable this spatial disconnect is, based on initial evidence that it might only temporary exists, DISCO uses information from patents to build an indicator and a firm-typology revealing the global patterns of which type of R&D activity is performed at which locations and how this changes over time. The project provides a quantitative measure for the type of R&D activity that goes beyond the qualitative measures often used to study this phenomenon. Applying the indicator reveals for instance similarities and differences between the R&D internationalization of emerging and established market firms. This can yield new evidence on innovation capability building and successful development trajectories in R&D internationalization. The findings provide a more profound understanding of the temporality of globally splitting R&D activities, with implications for firms and the regional development of emerging as well as established markets.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

A basic indicator for the type of offshore R&D activity within multinational firms was built, that shows the similarity of R&D activity conducted at offshore locations to the R&D activities conducted at the firm's headquarters. This measure enables us to categorize the type of activity as technology seeking or technology exploiting as well as follow it over time. This way we can analyze the sequence of the company's R&D internationalization strategy and identify types of strategies. For instance the data reveals that a common pattern might be for firms to start with technology seeking activities and then move into technology exploitation, but most firms stick with one or the other over a longer time frame. A detailed documentation of how the indicator is constructed as well as the visualization of the results can be found on the project website. Moreover, this will be accompanied by an explanation video

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The indicator can be a very useful tool for researchers, regional policy makers and educators. It provides the first quantitative patent based indicator to categorize the R&D internationalization strategy of multinational firms, an area in which so far mostly qualitative data has been used. Through the detailed documentation of the indicator it can be recreated, improved and applied to many different questions on R&D internationaliuzation strategies.

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