Publications
-
List item
PDF The 2018 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard
The 2018 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (the Scoreboard) comprises the 2500 companies investing the largest sums… Show more in R&D in the world in 2017/18. These companies, based in 46 countries, each invested over €25 million in R&D for a total of €736.4bn which is approximately 90% of the world's business-funded R&D. They include 577 EU companies accounting for 27% of the total, 778 US companies for 37%, 339 Japanese companies for 14%, 438 Chinese for 10% and 368 from the rest-of-the-world (RoW) for 12%. Show less
-
List item
Innovation and Industry: Policy for the next decade
This document contributes to the discussion on the post-2020 policies that will start with the next EU multiannual financial perspectives… Show more and the subsequent preparation of the ninth Framework Programme (FP9). We identify seven major challenges posed by the industrial transformation. These challenges will shape the future economic landscape and should be at the heart of the next generation policies. Four main ingredients are proposed for future EU policies: they should i) be based on (truly) new policy vision, aims and objectives; ii) promote coordination, simplification and openness; iii) target EU specificities; and iv) embody experimentation. Show less
-
List item
Does manufacturing stir up innovation?
Because of its positive contribution to employment and economic growth, the EU has set a manufacturing target of 20% of… Show more GDP. This could also boost R&D, productivity and exporting. Our analyses do not find empirical evidence that a large manufacturing sector has a direct influence on exporting activity or productivity growth. We find a positive association between manufacturing and R&D investment. The EU manufacturing strategy could help reaching the 3% R&D intensity target. However, the link between manufacturing and R&D depends on the industrial structure of a country. Support to new high-tech sectors should be coupled with actions to encourage technological upgrade in existing ones. Show less
-
List item
PDF The impact of multinational R&D spending firms on job polarization and mobility
This report analyses the role of multinational R&D intensive firms in job polarization. It also investigates how these firms affect… Show more the labour market in terms of wage growth and labour mobility. Firms appearing on the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard account for a significant share of economic activity in Denmark measured by employment, innovation activity, and R&D expenditures. Domestic firms listed on the scoreboard are the largest and most innovative, but subsidiaries of foreign scoreboard firms are still larger and more innovative compared to non-scoreboard firms. Relying on information from register data the report demonstrates that R&D spending among scoreboard firms is a complement to high skill jobs, while it substitutes low skill jobs. Thus, scoreboard firms are more involved in upgrading than polarization. Organisational change has an effect similar to that of R&D, while there is indication that innovation is a complement for low skilled jobs. Labour flows, particularly of high skilled workers, are stronger among scoreboard firms than between scoreboard firms and other firms. Thus, labour flows in networks instead of appearing in labour market pools, and non-scoreboard firms are kept out of the "knowledge spill-over" loops, providing them with fewer opportunities to learn from the scoreboard firms. Show less
-
List item
PDF Smart Specialisation, seizing new industrial opportunities
This study offers a novel analytical approach to inform the regional search for new industrial opportunities, as promoted by Smart… Show more Specialisation within the EU Cohesion policy context. The analysis departs from the challenges of practicing Smart Specialisation and its entrepreneurial discovery process in a dynamic perspective. It argues that the adoption of a dynamic approach to identify new opportunities implies mapping regional business and innovation assets as well as, assessing their position within the global technological and industrial landscape. The report brings a case study of the Lombardy region business environment, spurring from the S3 Lab initiative (in collaboration with Baden-Württemberg, Catalonia and Lapland), together with a comparative analysis focusing on technological development. The empirical study combines patent data from OECD REGPAT and territorial proprietary micro-data from Lombardy region on firm creation in emerging industries (EI) – new industrial sectors or existing sectors evolving into new industries (European Cluster Observatory). These industries represent a priority area for Lombardy's innovation-led development strategy. The initial observations confirm the importance of such industries in the region; they represent more than one-third of employment, almost a half of the regional value-added and feature together the majority of innovative start-ups, suggesting the relevance of the regional strategic development choices. Also, in terms of productive advantages, Lombardy ranks high in some key EI. The mapping of technological competences through patent indicators measuring specialisation, diversification and the ability to specialise in fast-growing and niche fields gives relevant insights on the technological potential of the region, providing further guidance for better targeted interventions. Show less
-
List item
R&D and Innovation across Global Value Chains: Insights for EU Territorial Innovation Policy
Firms organise innovation activities across a wider range of geographically dispersed and specialized units, as compared to previous decades. Moreover… Show more corporate innovation processes are broken up into ever finer stages and tasks at the global scale. The global dispersion of R&D and innovation activities occurs at a higher pace and goes hand in hand with a stronger regional polarization. Yet, corporate R&D remains a domestic activity, although functional and industry-specific patterns can be observed. The increased internationalisation of R&D and innovation activities does not imply the hollowing-out of domestic ones. Foreign innovation activities may actually support domestic increases in innovation. The internal and external connections of national and regional systems matter for their innovation performance. The quality of the regional learning and innovation systems is important to attract "relevant activities or segments" of the GVC. On the other hand, better connecting regions to the global innovation network is important for local growth and employment. The extent to which firms co-locate production and innovation activities depends on industry, product and process-specificities. Evidence is needed on how R&D and innovation activities are sliced and diced across GVCs, on how these global corporate dynamics interact with national and regional innovation systems and on how they impact on local growth and employment. Show less
-
List item
PDF World Corporate Top R&D Investors: Industrial Property Strategies in the Digital Economy
The speed, scale and scope of the digital transformation make it hard to fully apprehend the breadth and depth of… Show more the changes brought about by this new technological paradigm. Such a difficult exercise is nevertheless fundamental for evidence-based policies aiming at addressing the challenges and leveraging the opportunities that going digital may offer, while making the digital transformation societally enhancing and inclusive. The present report constitutes an effort in this respect and looks at the innovation-related investment and activities performed by market leaders worldwide to identify their technological trajectories. It shines a new light on the digital transformation and on the strategies pursued by top innovators worldwide to generate knowledge and to appropriate the returns from their knowledge-based investment through industrial property (IP) rights. Special attention is devoted to uncovering the extent to which information and communication technologies and activities are diffusing and have been adopted by actors operating in other technological and economic domains. To access the EC-JRC/OECD COR&DIP© database, v.1. 2017 (raw data provided in flat files), please fill in the on-line form at: Access to COR&DIP© Show less
-
List item
Concerns about the consequences of patenting on scientometric research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(9), 2293-2295.
Our concerns about the practice of patenting scientometric techniques began with an electronic notification alerting one of us to a… Show more patent titled "Scientometric Methods for Identifying Emerging Technologies" (Abercrombie, Schlicher, & Sheldon, 2015).1, 2 This came to our attention after we had already embarked on a research program to apply scientometric methods for the identification of emerging technologies here at the JRC. We were at a loss how to respond. This seemed to run counter to the spirit of openness and public science that has characterized the bibliometric community from the start. We got in contact with former colleagues Ben Martin and Daniele Rotolo, authors of a bibliometric study entitled "What is an emerging technology?" (together with Diana Hicks, published in Research Policy, 2015). Even though we were experts and professionals in innovation studies (although not all specifically on IP), we were not entirely sure of the patent's wider implications. Could it threaten to shut down our research? Could it rule out any research funding or consultancy opportunities? What ensued was a series of fruitful exchanges between us authors, with some of us not sure how to interpret this patent, and others disappointed (even outraged) that the patent had been granted on grounds of "non-obviousness." Opinions were divided whether a patent like this could have any impact at all. It took us a long time to grasp the (possible) implications of this patent, but other researchers in other circumstances might not have been as fortunate. Show less
-
List item
PDF Significant Business R&D Growth in 2016
This document shows first estimates on territorial R&D funded by the business sector, based on recent R&D and patent data… Show more from a representative sample of worldwide companies from the EU R&D Scoreboard. R&D funded by the business sector increased in the EU by 3.2%, below the 5.7% global rate and the US R&D growth (4%). As in the previous year, the worldwide growth of industrial R&D in 2016 was driven by ICT related industries. Among the three EU largest countries in terms of industrial R&D investment, Germany showed higher growth rates than France and the UK. However, only France recorded a better performance for 2016 compared to the previous year. Show less
-
List item
PDF Scientific Publication Activity of Scoreboard Companies
This report examines the extent to which firms included in the 2014 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard are involved in… Show more publication activity. The Scoreboard includes 2,500 firms most active in terms of R&D expenditure. These firms account for about 90% of the global private R&D expenditure. On the basis of a novel methodological approach to collect publication data from the Web of Science (WoS) for all Scoreboard firms and their subsidiaries (about 570,000 subsidiaries), the report examines the Scoreboard firms' publication activity for the 2011-2015 period. The main findings are summarised below: • Scoreboard firms (and their subsidiaries) contributed to 314,411 publications (about 3% of the global publication output as reported in WoS); • About 84% of Scoreboard firms contributed to at least one publication (with an average about of 137 publications per firm); the distribution of number of publications by firm is, however, highly skewed; • There is a relatively strong correlation between firms' R&D expenditure and their number of publications, but firms that score well in the rank by R&D expenditure (i.e. Scoreboard) do not necessarily score well in the rank by number of publications; • 58% of Scoreboard firms' publications involve at least one academic institution; • About 12% of Scoreboard firms' articles are within the top 10% most cited articles, and about 45% of Scoreboard firms contributed to at least one article that is within the top 10% most cited articles. Show less