Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 17
.
1
Types of actor in the innovation network
Internal
External
Total
Share of external (%)
P1
Exiting
49
58
107
54.2
Permanent
20
12
32
37.5
Total
69
70
139
P2
Entering
66
91
157
58.0
Permanent
20
12
32
37.5
Total
86
103
189
the group of permanent innovators, 37.5 per cent were not located in Jena but were
related to actors in Jena in both periods. The share of external partners that exited or
entered the network was greater than 50 per cent in both cases, with a slightly higher
percentage in the case of entering actors. This could be interpreted as a slight tendency of
the Jena innovator network to become more externally oriented.
The network of innovators and its change over time
In the next step, we look at relationships between the innovators via common inventors;
that is, the network of personal relationships (
pr
). Herein, we combine the two types,
cooperation
co
and scientist mobility
sm
- as dei ned above. Figure 17.1 shows the
pr
-
network, where we distinguish the
co
-network with black edges and the
sm
- network with
grey edges.
In Table 17.2, we report the statistics for the networks of cooperation (
co
t
), scientist
mobility (
sm
t
), and the (aggregate) network of personal relationships (
pr
t
). From the
various indicators and their change we can infer how the connectedness of the three
networks develops.
4
We start with the component structure. A component is a sub-structure of the
network, where all members of the component can reach each other, while there is no
connection to members of other components. Since we analyse relations that measure
the l ow of information and knowledge, a high share of actors in the largest component
(the one presented in Figure 17.1) means that many actors within the Jena region can
exchange knowledge and by that build up something like a common knowledge base.
The analysis of the component structure shows a trend towards decreasing fragmenta-
tion. In addition to the fact that the network is growing, the share of innovators in the
main component increases from 42.4 per cent to 49.7 per cent in the
pr
- network, from
8.6 per cent to 31.2 per cent in the
co
-network, and from 25.2 per cent to 32.3 per cent
in the
sm
-network. The share of isolates in the
pr
-network stays roughly constant with a
decreasing tendency in the
sm
-network and an increasing one in the
co
- network. Hence,
this increasing connectedness of the actors is a i rst indication of intensii ed knowledge
l ows within the Jena network.
Density is another measure that provides some information about the intensity of
knowledge l ows. If
g
is the size of the network as measured by the number of actors
and
d
i
is the degree, that is, the number of connections, of actor
i
,
i
5 1,
c
,
g
, then the
density
D
of the network is dei ned as the number of all linkages divided by the number
of possible linkages within the network
D
5 S
i
51
d
i
/ (
g
2
2
g
) . Looking at that indicator
