The role of R&D services in innovation support and economic transformation - A regional differentiation within Germany (91)

Theme Track: Sectoral Changes and New Markets - Advanced Producer Services

Author:
Koschatzky, Knut

R&D supporting services fulfil different functions in the national and regional economy. They contribute to

- complex knowledge generation by interlinking different scientific disciplines and different technologies;

- interdisciplinary cooperation for mastering the complexity of new technologies;

- the combination of basic research with problem- and application oriented research and development activities;

- the opening-up of new markets in an international scale from which innovation stimulating impulses emanate (lead markets);

- the shortening of product life-cycles, and

- the creation of foundations for strategic innovation decisions and for innovation management.

R&D services are defined in this context as R&D activities, carried out by private firms and public research organisations for external customers against payment. According to this definition, R&D services can be performed and offered by different institutions. This can be university institutes engaged in application oriented research, contract research organisations, technology transfer centres, private R&D service firms, and innovative manufacturing firms which offer additional services to their customers. Due to spillover effects, agglomeration economies and the localized character of tacit knowledge, R&D activities are mainly carried out in locations with a high density of firms and research institutes. The same applies to R&D services. They are as well highly depend on a favourable and supportive regional environment. It can thus be assumed that suppliers of R&D services can mainly be found in the major agglomerations of an economy. Nevertheless, since R&D services do not only comprise research work, but development activities as well, also deviations from this general location pattern might be possible. As firms are able to adjust their R&D strategies to different regional environments, also R&D service suppliers might behave differently according to the type of their location. It is the objective of this paper to shed some light on the R&D service sector, on regional variations in its own R&D activities and its innovation and R&D support function, and to analyse how this support function can be fulfilled in different regional contexts. Since a common statistical definition about the kind of services offered and the institutional background of R&D services providers does not exist, not much is known about the non-public R&D service firms in particular. Data used in this paper draw on a postal survey carried out in Germany in 2001 among research institutions and R&D service firms. Altogether 469 questionnaires could be used for statistical treatment, of which 271 represent private firms, 79 institutes form universities and polytechnics, and 119 non-university research institutes. Based on these data the following questions will be answered:

- Which kind of R&D services are offered by these three types of institutions?

- By which general characteristics (size, age, R&D intensity, origin) can they be described?

- What are their major markets and customers?

- To what degree and by which cooperation patterns are they linked to their regional environment?

- Where are these R&D service providers located? Is there a stronger tendency for private firms to locate in regions where major customers can be expected?

- Do firms and institutes located in less favourable regional environments show different patterns of R&D strategies and cooperation behaviour for offering R&D services than those located in well advanced regional economies?

- Can differences between East and West Germany in the R&D management of firms and institutes be identified?

- Which impacts on the regional economy and the regional innovation potential can be expected by the activities of the R&D service providers?

- Which policy conclusions about regional specific public support schemes for R&D services can be derived?

[Home]    [Sitemap]