What Large-Scale Publication and Citation Data Tell Us About International Research Collaboration in Europe: Changing National Patterns in Global Contexts

This study analyzes the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration (IRC) in Europe during the period 2009-2018 in terms of coauthorship and citation distribution of globally indexed publications. The results reveal the dynamics of this change, as growing IRC moves European systems away from institutional collaboration, with stable and strong national collaboration. Domestic output has remained flat. The growth in publications in major European systems is almost entirely attributable to internationally coauthored papers. A comparison of trends within the four complementary collaboration modes clearly reveals that the growth of European science is driven solely by internationally co-authored papers. With the emergence of global network science, which diminishes the role of national policies in IRC and foregrounds the role of scientists, the individual scientists willingness to collaborate internationally is central to advancing IRC in Europe. Scientists collaborate internationally when it enhances their academic prestige, scientific recognition, and access to research funding, as indicated by the credibility cycle, prestige maximization, and global science models. The study encompassed 5.5 million Scopus-indexed articles, including 2.2 million involving international collaboration.Comment: 20 page

What Large-Scale Publication and Citation Data Tell Us About International Research Collaboration in Europe: Changing National Patterns in Global Contexts

This study analyzes the unprecedented growth of international research collaboration (IRC) in Europe during the period 2009–2018 in terms of co-authorship and citation distribution of globally indexed publications. The results reveal the dynamics of this change, as growing IRC moves European systems away from institutional collaboration, with stable and strong national collaboration. Domestic output has remained flat. The growth in publications in major European systems is almost entirely attributable to internationally co-authored papers. A comparison of trends within the four complementary collaboration modes clearly reveals that the growth of European science is driven solely by internationally co-authored papers. With the emergence of global network science, which diminishes the role of national policies in IRC and foregrounds the role of scientists, the individual scientist’s willingness to collaborate internationally is central to advancing IRC in Europe. Scientists collaborate internationally when it enhances their academic prestige, scientific recognition, and access to research funding, as indicated by the credibility cycle, prestige maximization, and global science models. The study encompassed 5.5 million Scopus-indexed articles, including 2.2 million involving international collaboration

Global Competitiveness in Pharmaceuticals: A European Perspective

The report examines the competitive position of the European pharmaceutical companies and industries, and compares them with the pharmaceutical companies and industries in other parts of the world, particularly the US. Over the last two decades, the industry has experienced some important structural changes, mainly driven by technological and institutional shocks that have affected all the stages of its value chain. In turn, this has led to changes in firms' organisation and in market structure, within domestic markets, regionally, and globally. The main finding of the report is that the European industry has indeed been losing competitiveness as compared to the USA, although there are large differences and trends across European countries. As a whole, Europe is lagging behind in its ability to generate, organise, and sustain innovation processes that are increasingly expensive and organisationally complex. In fact, one conclusion of the report is that the relative position of the US as a locus of innovation in pharmaceuticals has increased over the past decade compared to Europe. All in all, the report claims that the competitiveness of the European pharmaceutical industry is negatively affected by the persistence of insufficient degrees of competition and institutional integration, still centred on domestic and fragmented health care and research systems. Four sets of variables have been found to be relevant as sources of competitiveness and growth in pharmaceuticals: 1) The size and the structure of the biomedical education and research systems; 2) Some basic institutions governing labor markets for skilled researchers and managers, as well as corporate governance and finance; 3) Intellectual property rights and patent law; 4) The institutional settings in the regulation of health care systems and, moreover, the nature and intensity of competition on the final market. The data analysed in this report come from OECD, Eurostat, the European Patent Office, IMS Health and PHID (PHarmaceutical Industry Database) at the University of Siena

Has emerging Asia decoupled? An analysis of production and trade linkages using the Asian international input-output table

Due to the emergence of global production networks, trade statistics have became less accurate in describing the dependence of emerging Asia on external demand. This paper analyses, using an update of the Asian International Input-Output (AIO) table, the interdependence of emerging Asian countries, the United States, the EU15, and Japan via trade and production linkages. According to the results, we do not find evidence of the decoupling of emerging Asia from the rest of the world. On the contrary, we find evidence on increasing trade integration, both globally and regionally. Nonetheless, our analysis indicates that emerging Asia’s dependence on exports is only about one-third of its GDP, i.e. well below the 50% exposure suggested by trade data. This finding can be explained by the high import content of exports in these economies, which is a result of the increasing segmentation of production across the region. JEL Classification: F14, C67, E23Asian International Input-Output table, decoupling, Emerging Asia, real linkages, resilience

European knowledge transfer reflected by research collaboration and patent citations indicators

Knowledge transfer consists of activities that aim to capture and transmit knowledge, skills and competence from those who generate them to those who will transform them into socio-economic outcomes. In the context of the March 2000 Lisbon strategy and its aim to make the European Union the “world's most dynamic and competitive knowledge economy”, knowledge transfer is considered to play an important role in helping to overcome obstacles such as a weak environment to stimulate high quality research and exploit research results. The introduction of new funding schemes and policies aimed at increasing knowledge flow between countries and sectors in Europe has increased the demand for studies of the impact of such policies and funding mechanisms and the development of relevant and accurate indicators related to them. The aim of this thesis was to study the dynamics of knowledge transfer in Europe and to examine how knowledge transfer can be measured and analysed through different indicators. This was done by studying co-authorships and collaborations within Europe as indicators of geographical knowledge transfer and patent citations as an indicator of sectoral knowledge flow. The results showed that researchers from smaller countries co-authored more with other EU countries than those from bigger countries, while the co-authorship rate with extra-EU partners was not dependent on a country’s size. Co-authorship patterns were also found to depend on the scientific field. The analysis also indicated that multilateral collaborations funded through the EU Framework Programmes are more exclusively European in nature. In contrast, co-publication patterns in multilateral collaborations suggested that European researchers tend to co-author more with global, rather than exclusively European partners and that this global multilateral orientation in copublications continues to rise. When using co-publications as an indicator for geographical knowledge flow, the results demonstrated that European research policy most likely has had an impact on research collaboration patterns. However, the results also strongly suggested that any direct impact was limited and did not over-ride self-selected collaboration patterns that continue to drive a more global, rather than exclusively European, research collaboration orientation. A more disaggregated scrutiny of publication patterns also underscored very clearly that collaboration strategies show considerable diversity across scientific fields, as well as countries. Further, the results suggest that some policies, to support innovation in regions with a low absorptive capacity (weak innovation activities and a low tech profile) e.g. supporting regional R&D through subsidies, may be less successful than the incorporation of qualified personnel at firms or the increase of local university-industry links. The thesis also made several contributions to the discussion of research methods in this field by investigating the utility of some central indicators and approaches. The results showed that the corresponding author is most likely to appear first and thereafter most-likely to appear last in the byline. However, the analysis also indicated that these results are dependent on the number of authors in a paper and that national differences also exist, thus arguing for a fine-tuning of bibliometric tools, in order to more effectively capture the relative importance of author contributions. Similarly, the analysis examined the use of patent citations as an indicator for science-industry links and geographical localization at a regional level. It found that there are reasons to question the use of this indicator, specifically in a region with low absorptive capacity. The related results also highlighted that there is a need to differentiate between applicant and examiner citations when examining the knowledge base since examiners and applicants add different types of knowledge

Publication and patent analysis of European researchers in the field of production technology and manufacturing systems

This paper develops a structured comparison among a sample of European researchers in the field of Production Technology and Manufacturing Systems, on the basis of scientific publications and patents. Researchers are evaluated and compared by a variegated set of indicators concerning (1) the output of individual researchers and (2) that of groups of researchers from the same country. While not claiming to be exhaustive, the results of this preliminary study provide a rough indication of the publishing and patenting activity of researchers in the field of interest, identifying (dis)similarities between different countries. Of particular interest is a proposal for aggregating analysis results by means of maps based on publication and patent indicators. A large amount of empirical data are presented and discusse

Drivers of the European Bioeconomy in Transition (BioEconomy2030): an exploratory, model-based assessment

The bioeconomy comprises sectors that use renewable biological resources to produce food, materials and energy. It is at the centre of several global and EU challenges in the near future such as the creation of growth and jobs, climate change, food security and resource depletion. “Bioeconomy 2030†projects a reference scenario (‘business as usual’) and compares it with two distinct policy narratives (‘Outward-looking’ and ‘Inward-looking’) to understand the drivers of EU’s bioeconomy up to 2030, assess its resilience to fulfil such diverse policy goals and identify potential trade-offs. As a motor of jobs and growth, the results indicate that the importance of the bio-based sectors is expected to dwindle somewhat. The factors underlying this result are mainly structural and related to comparably lower macroeconomic growth rates in the EU. It is, however, conceivable that improved economic development or productivity improvements linked to EU investments in, for instance bio-based innovation, would produce a recognisably more optimistic outlook for the EU bioeconomy.Publishe

Prosperity for all? Real adjustment in the MFA complex after Marrakech

More than thirty years after Ludwig Erhard suggested a breathing spell for European textile/clothing (T+C) industries to adjust to new market conditions, the Final Act in Marrakech foresees yet another transitional period before liberalization is achieved. During the breathing spell factors shaping trade/production patterns of MFA products led to production shifts to NON-ICs and concomitantly exports back to ICs. While initially and primarily clothing production - given technological constraints - continued expanding in labor-abundant countries, recent shifts in the production location of textiles underline the erosion of ICs' capital-intensive/high-tech advantages. At the same time, the high-tech equipment demanded for manufacturing MFA products originated - contrary to most other engineering products - ever more from ICs. Since competitiveness of textile machinery firms depends upon interfacing with textile producers, might there be danger of reneging on Marrakech promises? For European producers this danger does not seem imminent as Eastern European manufacturing sites are rapidly evolving. And the impact of the Final Act on future T+C production/trade patterns? If an EC strategy initially excludes liberalization of highly restricted MFA products, Eastern Europe seems to have a head start, whereas Hong Kong will have to wait. While countries like Hong Kong may still pocket quota rents, early liberalization will help promote more efficient production, hence prosperity.

Divergence or Convergence in Research and Development and Innovation Between ‘East’ and ‘West’?

Book description: Research suggests that innovation and technological change are crucial for the economic recovery of the former centrally planned countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This book analyses the development of innovation systems and technology policy in this region from various perspectives, demonstrating not only its importance but also its complexity