Publications
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PDF The 2020 EU Survey on Industrial R&D Investment Trends
This fifteenth Survey on Industrial R&D investment trends has been separated into two dedicated questionnaires, one related to the impact… Show more of the COVID-19 pandemic (45 responses) and one regular R&D Survey (61 responses). The participating EU firms expect R&D investment to rebound by 7% in 2021 after a small decrease in 2020. While the impact on employment (both R&D and non-R&D) for the financial year of 2020 is expected to be small, the impact on Capital expenditures and Net Sales show more negative expectations, with foreseen decreases of 4.5% and 5.9%. Show less
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How the “EU Innovation Champions” successfully absorbed and reacted to the shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
• The COVID-19 pandemic presented great challenges, but also opportunities, to SMEs across Europe. • We examine how the “European Innovation… Show more Champions” successfully absorbed and reacted to the shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. • Five different paradoxical behaviors (i.e., planning, liquidity, time and velocity, partnership, resources and technology) characterized the European Innovation Champions during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. • We distill 10 management principles representing key actions and decisions that allowed the European Innovation Champions to manage each paradox. • This report provides policymakers and business leaders both within and outside the European Union with insights to enhance the capability of SMEs to succeed through a crisis. Show less
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The role of gender in linking external sources of knowledge and R&D intensity
Scholars examining the effect of knowledge spillovers on R&D and innovation all agree on one thing--there is a strong relationship… Show more between the firm's R&D effort and knowledge spillover. The sign of this relationship depends, however, on many things, such as the type of spillovers (horizontal, vertical, or from other sources), the level of appropriability , the type of firm (e.g., age and sector), and the measurement of the spillover itself. A missing piece of evidence to this literature is the role of gender in the founding team of the firm. Our contribution is to fill this gap by explicitly analyzing the role played by gender in the founding team. Given that the relationship between a firm's R&D intensity and external knowledge spillovers is ultimately context-specific, we analyse the differences between male-owned and female-owned young entrepreneurial firms with respect to the influence that knowledge spillovers have on their R&D intensity. Show less
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Regulations and technology gap in Europe: the role of firm dynamics
In this paper, we develop a new firm-level measure of distance to the productivity frontier that accounts for international technology… Show more spillovers stemming from the use of imported intermediate goods. The trade-weighted technological distance to frontier is matched with sector- and country-level data on regulation and firm dynamics (entry and exit rates) of 16 European countries. Using our measure of trade-adjusted technology gap, we investigate the role of labour, capital, and product market regulatory frameworks in the technology catch-up process, gauging the effect of firms' dynamics in mediating and moderating the impact of regulation on the technology gap. Our study offers a novel perspective and insights to the analysis of the link between framework conditions and technological distance to frontier. While most scholars argue that less regulation always favours productivity growth and the diffusion of technology, our results provide a more nuanced picture. Deregulation is not a one-size-fits-all solution that leads to faster technology diffusion, instead heterogeneity in business dynamism and countries' regulatory structures need to be considered. Show less
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Technological readiness in Europe EU policy perspectives on Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 and Regional Transformations, Edited By L.a De Propris, D. Bailey (13 chapters, 276 pages) This edited volume brings together… Show more a group of expert contributors to explorebthe opportunities and the challenges that Industry 4.0 (smart manufacturing) is likely to pose for regions, fi rms and jobs in Europe. Drawing on theory and empirical cases, it considers emerging issues like servitization, new innovation models for local production systems and the increase in reshoring. Industry 4.0 and Regional Transformations captures the complexity of this new manufacturing model in an accessible way and considers its implications for the future. It will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers and policy makers in regional studies, industrial policy, economic geography, innovation studies, operations management and engineering. Chapter 12: Technological readiness in Europe: EU policy perspectives on Industry 4.0, by Mafini Dosso, JRC B3. Territorial development, Seville, Spain The technological and innovative developments promised by the next industrial revolution come with their corollaries of optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for our societies. Public policy is tackling digital transition issues; meanwhile, it is already acting on and anticipating the challenges and opportunities, and the risks and uncertainties, of the emerging Industry 4.0 paradigm. The qualitative analysis mainly relies upon official European Commission communications and European Union (EU) reports as well as thematic national and regional strategies. It brings together an updated and structured picture of some of the rationales and directions of I4.0-enabling policies in the EU. The initial efforts to develop key enabling technologies and advanced manufacturing as engines of the EU’s growth trajectory led to the identification of priority action lines for the EU’s industrial policy and investments into new technologies. The priority areas underlined in the previous communications also constituted important building blocks of the EU Regional and Cohesion Policy for the period 2014–2020 Show less
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Organization and geography of global R&D and innovation activities: insights from qualitative research on leading corporate R&D investors
This study examines the on-going structural changes in the international organisation of corporate R&D and innovative (RDI) activities. Insights are… Show more mainly drawn from interviews made to innovation representatives and managers of large R&D-investing companies in 2017 in the frame of the European Commission’s project – Industrial Research and Innovation Monitoring and Analysis –. The research intends to complement the quantitative evidence available in the project on the worldwide leading corporate R&D investors in order to better characterize the on-going fragmentation of R&D and innovation activities. The study suggests directions for mapping innovation value chains beyond research and inventive activities and carries out important conceptual and policy implications for the configurations and sustainability of innovation systems in Europe. Show less
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The EU vs US corporate R&D intensity gap: Investigating key sectors and firms
This paper contributes to the literature on corporate research and development (R&D) intensity decomposition by examining the effects of several… Show more parameters on R&D intensity. It draws on a longitudinal company-level micro-dataset, built using four editions of the EU R&D Scoreboard, and confirms the structural nature of the EU R&D intensity gap with the US, which has widened in the last decade. As a novel contribution to the literature, this paper uncovers the differences between the EU and the US by inspecting which sectors and firms are more accountable for the aggregate R&D intensity performance of these two economies. Furthermore, the study shows that a large share of R&D investment by the EU sample is mostly conducted in sectors with medium or low R&D intensity, and that there is a high concentration of R&D in a few sectors and firms. Interestingly, the investigation finds a high heterogeneity in firms' R&D intensity within sectors, indicating the coexistence of firms with different R&D investment strategies and efficiencies. Finally, the study reveals that the EU holds a much lower number of both larger and smaller R&D investors than the USA, in the four high-tech sectors that are key to the aggregate EU R&D intensity gap vis-à-vis the USA. Show less
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On R&D sectoral intensities and convergence clubs
Sectoral convergence in R&D intensities among firms is a concept that, although rarely formalized, has been at the center of… Show more discussions of industrial and non-industrial actors, such as entrepreneurs, institutions and academics. Far from being a settled issue, the subject has seen very limited empirical attention. We start from the few current evidences, which point to the existence of some beta-convergence together with diffused heterogeneity. We recover and integrate the literature from convergence clubs and extend the work introducing the use of Pavitt taxonomy, and new estimation techniques. Particularly, we apply the concept of weak sigma-convergence using a quite novel econometric factor model. Thanks to this, we provide evidences of both beta-convergence for within-sector intensities and of club convergence for across-sector intensities. Finally, the club classification according to "innovative effort" may be used as an alternative way to look at standard economic activities classifications. Show less
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PDF Global race for robotisation – Looking at the entire robotisation chain
Where does Europe stand in the global robotisation race? This paper aims to answer this question by developing a novel… Show more theoretical and analytical framework which applies the concept of a global value chain to robotisation. By doing this, we investigate in detail the entire robotisation chain, from robotics developers to robot manufacturers, and companies that deploy industrial robots. For the research and development (R&D)-intensive part of the chain (robotics development), we analyse the robotics patent data of the Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) combined with ORBIS, while for the capital-intensive part (deployment of robots), our information is sourced from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). Our results show that although the ‘big five’ (Europe, USA, China, Japan, and Korea) dominate the global robotisation landscape they do not all hold equally strong positions across the whole robotisation chain. Japan and Korea are the early first-movers and today’s global leaders, as they are robustly engaged in every part of the chain. Europe is very strong in robot manufacturing and robot deployment, but is behind global leaders in robotics development. The USA has its firm competitive advantages in robotics development, while at present the latecomer China is a rival only in the industrial deployment of robots. Nevertheless, in Europe, some smaller and advanced economies are specialising in certain parts of the robotisation chain, as Austria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden are performing well in robotics development; not only this, Belgium, Italy, and Spain are making extensive use of industrial robots for various kinds of manufacturing. European economies which are lagging behind the rest – largely consisting of Central and Eastern European countries – are involved in the robotisation chain only insofar as they are involved in robot deployment. Since there are only 43 countries globally who are taking part in robotisation, the eminent policy challenge remains to find ways for countries to become integrated into the robotisation chain, and for those countries already engaged in robotisation, the main focus is to create policies which support upgrading across the chain, as the reshoring of previously offshored production becomes more prevalent. Show less
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Economic Complexity for competitiveness and innovation: a novel bottom-up strategy linking global and regional capacities
EU manufacturing has lost ground due to the low growth of the EU domestic economy and its diminished participation in… Show more global manufacturing value chains. EU industry is facing different transitions at the same time, including the digital transformation and the transition towards a net zero emission and circular economy. Developing technologies, products and solutions for this while having access to finance, resources and human capital equipped with the right skills are amongst the huge challenges to be overcome in the next decade. This implies the need for new business models and actors to ensure future competitiveness and employment. These competitive pressures challenge the EU as leading innovator in the world, which in turn is crucial for future industrial competitiveness. From the policy side, a more integrated approach to industrial, innovation and regional policies is necessary to trigger successful industrial transformation. In this environment, conventional economic analyses have shown limited usefulness. Indeed, Complex System analysis has highlighted since the '80s the limitation of conventional economic analyses to identify hidden trends in complex environments (Anderson, Arrow and Pines 1987). Economic Complexity is an alternative, non-conventional bottom-up and data-driven approach inspired by statistical physics and complex systems science. By producing quantitative, falsifiable results and relationships, it has great potential in the analysis of the current challenges in Innovation Systems. Show less