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Fig. 11.3
Betweenness centrality (1986-2006)
The simplest way to validate this insight is to calculate the ratio between the
number of scientific collaborations (or RTD projects) in a given city and the
population of that city. A larger ratio indicates greater specialization of a city in
European-funded converging-technologies R&D.
In Fig. 11.4 , some small cities appear to have many RTD projects for their
population size. These cities are considered to be specialized, as defined above. The
most specialized cities are the most renowned university cities, such as Cambridge,
Louvain, Oxford and Heidelberg (Table 11.3 ), because the location factors for R&D
in converging technologies depend on the quality of the scientific infrastructure and
the presence of a skilled population. These factors tend to favor the most renowned
university cities.
As a whole, the structure of the European urban network dedicated to converging
technologies is dominated partly by the largest European cities and partly by
renowned university cities. We hypothesize that these “hub cities” are essential to
the interconnection of national urban systems at the European scale. In the following
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