Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
a national and, even more, global level, a regional environment
rich with industrial partners is critical for supporting networking
activity. Sectoral differences are extremely relevant. In the ICT
business-services sector, R&D networks with clients and suppli-
ers are very common. On the other hand, collaborations in the
pharmaceutical industry tend to be mostly with biotechnology
companies and seldom with direct competitors. Finally, MNEs in
the automotive sector actively source external knowledge from
development partners/suppliers, for instance by establishing sup-
plier parks. R&D collaborations with academia are highly valued
and efforts are made, across industries, to increase them at the
global as well as regional scale. Scientific partners are normally
met first at conferences and industry related events or - as
especially stressed in the pharmaceutical industry - by active
participation in the scientific community (e.g., producing and/or
publishing high quality research results). One of the major obsta-
cles to network formation is the inability of academic institutions
to adequately advertise their skills (so far universities rely mostly
on peer reviewed publications or conference participation). As
a consequence, several MNEs are trying to devise new mecha-
nisms to identify the strengths of universities and design a more
efficient way to interact with them; (2)
Creation and exchange of
knowledge
. Two types of industrial collaboration can be identified:
firstly technology partnerships, which focus primarily on early-
stage R&D at the pre-competitive level; secondly product specific
collaborations, which focus on later stages of the product/service
development processes. These collaborations can either be bilat-
eral or multilateral (as, for instance, in joint EU projects involving
both academic and industrial members) and are generally sup-
ported and coordinated through MNEs' dedicated departments.
Collaborations with universities and research institutes are, in
most cases, at the very early stage of the innovation stream (blue
sky). Universities often act as a filter mechanism for the MNE to
identify new targets, as well as to validate and evaluate whether
an idea has commercial potential. For instance, one of the UK-
owned pharmaceutical firms operating in Germany established
a research advisory board composed by selected senior aca-
demics from leading universities, to ensure high level scientific-
management decisions (such as clinical study protocols). Other
major motivations for MNE collaboration with academic partners
