Publications
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PDF World Corporate Top R&D Investors: Shaping the Future of Technologies and of AI
In modern societies, innovation and new technologies are key to growth and development and to achieving more inclusive economies and… Show more societies. In the past decades, the development and adoption of new technologies across all sectors of the economy has been characterised by unprecedented speed, scale and scope of technological change. Some of these new technologies are so pervasive that they have the potential to affect every part of economies and societies. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one such general purpose technology that seems set to play a key role in almost every aspect of our lives. While very widespread and deep, ongoing changes are nevertheless difficult to fully understand. The prospect for opportunities seems huge but so do the challenges, and there is the risk that the future may bring undesirable consequences - at least for some parts of society - if technological change is not steered towards enabling inclusive and sustainable outcomes, nor follows internationally agreed ethical principles. AI is a typical example of a technology having the potential to profoundly improve our lives but also to create or widen disparities. Understanding the role of all players involved in and leading technological change, also in the private sector, is key to better understand ongoing and future developments and to steer them in a direction that enhances society. This report brings together data on patents, trademarks and scientific publications of the world’s top corporate R&D investors to shed light on the role of these key players in shaping the future of technologies, and of AI in particular. As for the two previous editions, this work results from the collaborative effort of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), two organisations committed to providing solid data and analysis in support of evidence-based policy making. Show less
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PDF Economic complexity to address current challenges in innovation systems: A novel empirical strategy linked to the territorial dimension
Economic Complexity is a data driven empirical approach developed to inform the territorial development debate with quantitative metrics. In this framework,… Show more techniques inspired by complex systems analysis and network theory allow to measure the intangible capabilities necessary for a country or region to be competitive, both in absolute terms and in specific markets. This document addresses how different clogs of the innovation system co-evolve under complexity: both in terms of the different aspects (innovation, production, scientific activities) and geographical scales (countries, regions, cities) By using a number of techniques from the Economic Complexity toolbox, this document showcases examples of policy messages. Show less
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PDF International technological collaboration in the China-Europe-US triangle: Evidence from top corporate R&D investors
The report examines the empirical patterns and dynamics of technological collaboration within the China-Europe-US triangle. It provides an assessment of… Show more the international knowledge collaboration and sourcing for the sample of worldwide top corporate R&D investors (EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard). To this end, it exploits European Patent Office and US Patent and Trademark Office patent data and information on the location of the inventor(s) and the applicant Scoreboard firms for the decade 2005-2015. The study mainly focuses on the patenting activity of China-, EU- and US-based firms and compares the extent to which they tap into knowledge sources from abroad, as compared to domestic ones. Finally, the report explores the industry-specific patterns of international technological collaborations in the China-EU-US triangle. Show less
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PDF How to survive an economic crisis? Lessons from the innovation profiles of EU regions
Whereas the European project has long been described as a ‘convergence machine', the recent economic crisis has halted convergence in… Show more certain dimensions, and triggered divergence in others. By exploiting a dataset that includes patents, trademarks and design registrations at the regional level (NUTS2) in the period 2007-2016, this report aims to identify the different innovation profiles of European regions. Moreover, we also investigate to what extent the innovation profiles of regions have contributed to their resistance to the shock brought by the 2008 economic crisis, as well as their paths of economic recovery in the aftermath of the crisis. Innovation did help to sustain employment both during the economic downturn as well as in the aftermath. The most resilient regions are those that have a strong performance in the three intellectual property rights (IPRs) analysed; patents, trademarks and design. This suggests the presence of comparative advantages for those regional innovation systems which couple technology-intensive innovation in manufacturing with a strong service-intensive sector. Evidence also suggests that European regions should no longer be divided into the advanced regions in the West and the lagging-behind regions in the East. There is a group of regions in Eastern countries that is consistently improving its innovation performance, while growing disparities in innovation arise within the EU-15 countries. Show less
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PDF Technological innovation activities in the EU: A new perspective
In many EU countries, a high proportion of local inventions are owned by foreign companies. On the contrary, in few… Show more countries the number of patents owned is much higher than the local inventions. Companies from Germany and the US are the most frequent foreign owners of patents invented in EU countries. Concentration of patents across companies changes largely from one country to the other. Differences between local inventions and patent ownership, as well as their concentration within countries matter for Innovation policies aiming at closing the EU gap of knowledge creation and technology diffusion. Show less
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PDF What are the policy options? A systematic review of policy responses to the impacts of robotisation and automation on the labour market
Three main policy responses to the labour market challenges posed by robotisation and automation have emerged in the research literature.… Show more The first is ‘taxing robots' and using this revenue to introduce a basic income that could offset the negative impacts of replacing humans by robots. The second option highlights the ownership of robots so that taking part in the new source of wealth is possible. The third focuses on strengthening the comparative advantages, the creativity, and the social intelligence of humans that robots will never be able to match. All of these policy responses are supported by economic rationales and research findings but a systematic review shows that all of them raise further questions and challenges that should be carefully investigated in order to choose the right path. This paper offers a comprehensive overview of these questions. Furthermore, in a broader sense these policy options—redistributing the benefits of technological changes, increasing accesses to the benefits and utilisation of changes, and supporting the individual and institutional adjustment to changes—are relevant to every technological transformation. Hence, the lessons that are drawn from the current discussion of policy options driven by specific technologies, robotization, and automation might serve as a precursor to potential policy responses triggered by other technologies. Show less
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PDF Distribution of industrial research and innovation activities: An application of the technology readiness levels
The Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) approach is relevant to map the functional decomposition of companies' R&D value chains. TRLs matter… Show more for corporate location choices. Knowing what distinct types of R&D&I activities (or TRLs) stay, go and come back in EU territories – and why – is central for policies supporting local industrial and innovation ecosystems and clusters, and the identification and integration into strategic value chains. Fast-developing local strengths of Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, in Automotive, and in Electronics and related fields are shaping companies' geographical decomposition of R&D&I activities. While the EU has strong value chains in e.g. automotive (network of combustion engine) and pharma (highly skilled labour force and strong research institutions), corporate R&D&I investments are finding their way to novel applications in emerging technologies in Asia. Show less
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PDF Intellectual Property Protection Mechanisms and the Characteristics of Founding Teams
Intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) are critical to fostering innovation and their relevance has grown enormously with the increased trade… Show more in goods and services involving intellectual property. Scholars have investigated what factors facilitate or hinder the use of such IP protection strategies, identifying country, sector, and firm characteristics. However, the extant literature has overlooked the role of founding team characteristics on the choice of IPPMs. Using data from a large sample of European small and young entrepreneurial firms, we show that controlling for size, R&D intensity, and other firms and market effects, the founding team characteristics such as gender and education greatly influence the choice of IPPMs. Show less
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PDF Assessing the innovation capability of EU companies in developing dual use technologies
This study proposes a framework to identify and analyse the European defence innovation ecosystem and to investigate the relevance of… Show more dual use inventions, extending previous empirical approaches. 63,714 defence inventions in the decade 2002-2012 were analysed by taking several dimensions into consideration: time, geography, technology, type of innovator. The main findings indicate an increasing trend of patented inventions covering a wide range of technological fields not only in the traditional defence areas, but also in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and in instruments for measurement and control. The innovations seem to be quite concentrated: the twenty largest patent holders (firms and government agencies) account for 40% of total defence inventions. The largest geographical source of innovations is the USA, but South Korea has increased significantly in recent years. Dual use innovations, i.e. military patents subsequently cited by a civilian invention, are identified using a novel method employing patent citations. The proportion of dual use inventions in the whole dataset is 41%, but the value has been decreasing in recent years and shows heterogeneity across technological sectors and geographical areas (the USA reports the highest share, 63.9%). Analysis of knowledge flows suggests significant heterogeneity in the share of intra-border innovations: the European defence innovations are largely cited by US inventions, especially when considering dual use cases. Show less
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PDF R&D and innovation activities in companies across Global Value Chains
The objective of the study is to better understand the geographical and organizational patterns of corporate R&D and innovation across… Show more Global Value Chains (GVCs) and their interactions with home and host-countries' economies and policy initiatives. In addition, a better understanding of the drivers and barriers to improving the location of high-value creation and knowledge-intensive activities in Europe and the competitive position of EU industry in strategic GVCs is aimed for. Show less