STI Roadmaps for SDGs: Smart Specialisation for Territorial and Industrial Development in Rwanda

The International Workshop on Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmaps for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) took place in Kigali, January 9th-10th 2020. It was the first Workshop organised by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) that addressed Smart Specialisation for Territorial and Industrial Development in Rwanda. In line with the EU Green Deal and the objectives of the Government of Rwanda, the workshop emphasised the sharing of best practices between various countries and taking an evidence-based approach, with localisation of actions and prioritisation of efforts. Follow-up Smart Specialisation cooperation with Rwanda is now taking place in the framework of the JRC Exploratory Research activity on “Smart Specialisation in Innovative and Informal African Economies”.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Top R&D Investors and international knowledge seeking: the role of emerging technologies and technological proximity

This paper sheds new lights on the internationalization of technological activities of the top corporate R&D investors worldwide. In particular, we provide evidence on the technological factors determining their international R&D location strategies. The empirical analysis is based on the patenting activities of the top R&D investors, as reported by the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, at the USPTO over the period 2010–2012. The technological proximity to the host country in which these companies seek for new knowledge is a key determinant for their R&D location decision. However, technological proximity has a non-linear effect on the companies' location strategies as they search for new technologies not too close to their knowledge base. Furthermore, top R&D investors worldwide target countries with comparative advantages in emerging technologies. Countries willing to attract high-value investments should create an environment conducive to the creation and development of brand new ideas with a high potential impact on the long term growth.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

Towards evidence-based industrial research and innovation policy

Calls for better use of scientific evidence to inform policy decisions stem from the belief that enhanced outcomes for the society can be expected. Yet the introduction of evidence-based practices in innovation policy making has not come without criticism. This introductory article sets the scene for the short collection of papers that address specific issues regarding the prospect of better evidence-based policy in the area of industrial research and innovation (IRI). It identifies and discusses key challenges for the transition towards evidence-based industrial research and innovation policy. It then introduces the three papers, which build upon and depart from related assumptions or narratives reflecting the current state of practices in IRI policy

World Top R&D Investors: Industrial Property Strategies in the Digital Economy

The speed, scale and scope of the digital transformation and the widespread use of digital technologies in most aspects of our daily lives are changing the way we work, innovate, produce, interact and live. Knowledge flows almost instantaneously and digitalised information can be infinitely replicated, making the exploitation of knowledge a key factor for competitiveness. At the same time, changes at the local level may have global implications and innovation ecosystems become more and more global. These dynamics challenge policy making, and call for understanding the drivers of change, detecting trends in a timely fashion, and acting in a coordinated manner. The internet of things, digital manufacturing and 3D printing, industry 4.0 and big data are all components and drivers of the digital transformation, but the ways in which this new technological revolution will transform industries, countries and societies remain difficult to fully anticipate. As we become increasingly aware of the opportunities and the challenges of the digital economy, we also need to better understand how these technologies are forged and to identify the key players in such changes. The original data and statistics on the innovation output of the world's top corporate R&D investors presented in this report and its focus on digital technologies represent an important step towards this direction. It results from a long-term collaboration between the European Commission's Joint Research Centre and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and their joint efforts to provide up-to-date comparable data and state-of-the-art indicators and analysis. This report is directed at a number of stakeholders, including policy makers, industry representatives, practitioners and the scientific community. By exploiting information on patents, trademarks and designs, this work sheds light on the top R&D investors worldwide in the digital economy, their innovative and creative activities and their branding strategies. It is accompanied by a publicly available database that can be used for further analysis in support of evidence-based policy making.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

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 specialisation in 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 study brings a case study of Lombardy region, spurring the S3 Lab initiative (in collaboration with Baden-Württemberg, Catalonia and Lapland), together with a comparative analysis of its technological profile. 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 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, e.g. specialisation, diversification and 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.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

World Corporate Top R&D Investors: Innovation and IP bundles

Innovation and technological development are today main ingredients of countries' economic development strategies. This is based on evidence showing the importance of technical progress and innovation in increasing the efficiency in the use of labour and capital inputs (multi-factor productivity), one of the main drivers of GDP growth in most OECD countries for more than two decades. World regions and countries are competing to attract and retain those segments of the global value chains that most contribute to value and job creation. In a context of increasing globalisation and interdependence of knowledge generation and exploitation activities, policies aiming at reinforcing the scientific and technological competitiveness of economies need to rely on a wide range of science, technology and innovation indicators reflecting increasingly complex innovation systems. A main actor of innovation systems is the business sector. Evidence shows that a very large proportion of the R&D investments financed and executed by the business sector worldwide is concentrated in a relatively small number of world leading corporate innovators, in many cases large multinational groups. These companies also concentrate a significant proportion of the patents and trademarks filed in the most important intellectual property offices around the world. In this respect, the original data and statistics on the innovation output of world top corporate R&D investors presented in this report is extremely relevant for the support of evidence-based research and innovation policies. The report builds on the efforts to collect up-to-date, reliable and comparable company data on the top corporate R&D investors worldwide carried-out by the European Commission since 2004 (the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard publication) and on the solid knowledge and experience of the OECD in developing and providing robust and state of the art indicators on science, technology and industry (see for example OECD's STI Scoreboard publications). Essentially descriptive in nature, the company based data and statistics on the patents and trademarks portfolios of world top corporate investors open the door to further research and analysis about companies' global strategies for knowledge development and exploitation. The main target audience is the researcher community and policy analysts with an interest in supporting evidence-based policy making in the area of innovation and industrial policies. The underlying company data on patents and trademark will be made publicly available. The objective is to allow practitioners to make intensive use of this data to contribute to the advance of knowledge and empirical evidence on companies' innovative activities and performance.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

The 2013 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

The 2013 "EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard" (the Scoreboard) contains economic and financial data of the world's top 2000 companies ranked by their investments in research and development (R&D). The sample contains 527 companies based in the EU and 1474 companies based elsewhere. The Scoreboard data are drawn from the latest available companies' accounts, i.e. the fiscal year 2012.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

The 2014 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

The 2014 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" (the Scoreboard) contains economic and financial data for the world's top 2500 companies ranked by their investments in Research and Development (R&D). The sample contains 633 companies based in the EU and 1867 companies based elsewhere. The Scoreboard data are drawn from the latest available companies' accounts, i.e. usually the fiscal year 2013/14. Key findings of the 2014 Scoreboard comprise: - The world top 2500 R&D investors continued to increase their investment in R&D (4.9%), well above the growth of net sales (2.7%). The 633 EU companies increased R&D by 2.6% and decreased sales by 1.9%. - Volkswagen leads the global ranking for the second consecutive year, showing again a remarkable increase of R&D (23.4%, up to €11.7bn). Second continues to be Samsung, showing also an impressive R&D increase of 25.4%. - EU companies in the automobile sector, accounting for one quarter of the total EU’s R&D, continued to increase significantly their R&D (6.2%). This reflects the good performance of automobiles companies based in Germany (9.7%) that account for three quarters of this sector’s R&D in the EU. - The poor R&D performance of EU companies in high-tech sectors such as Pharmaceuticals (0.9%) and Technology Hardware and equipment (-5.4%) weighed down the total R&D increase of the EU sample. The overall amount invested in R&D by EU companies in high-tech sectors represents 40% of the amount invested by their US counterparts and the gap between the two company samples is increasing with time.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

The 2017 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

The 2017 edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (the Scoreboard) comprises the 2500 companies investing the largest sums in R&D in the world in 2016/17. These companies, based in 43 countries, each invested over €24 million in R&D for a total of €741.6bn which is approximately 90% of the world’s business-funded R&D. They include 567 EU companies accounting for 26% of the total, 822 US companies for 39%, 365 Japanese companies for 14%, 376 Chinese for 8% and 370 from the rest-of-the-world (RoW) for 13%. This report analyses the main changes in companies’ R&D and economic indicators over the past year and their performance over the past ten years. It also includes results from additional complementary studies on companies’ productivity, their development of ICT-related technologies and scientific publication activity.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen