The organizational and regional determinants of inter-regional collaborations – Academic inventors as bridging agents

Friedrich Dornbusch, Sidonia von Proff and Thomas Brenner ()
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Friedrich Dornbusch: Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Competence Center Policy and Regions

No 2013-11, Working Papers on Innovation and Space from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: Collaboration over distance is difficult to maintain in innovation projects which require a great deal of regional collaboration. However, patent documents reveal that a number of inventor teams are able to overcome long distances. Earlier literature started to investigate factors, which increase the probability of long-distance innovation co-operation. The paper at hand is restricted to patents with academic participation, but takes a close look at two types of factors in the environment of the inventors: (1) the characteristics of the university that employs the academic inventor(s), and (2) the influence of the regional environment. Research on the impact of these factors is still underdeveloped in the literature. By considering only patents with at least one academic inventor we have a relatively homogeneous subset of patents and can concentrate on the external impacts. We find that a similar research area structure, a high absorptive capacity as well as a high start-up rate foster intra-regional collaboration. More TTO staff and a larger university lead to more long-distance collaboration while the industry orientation of the university does not exert an influence on the distance between inventors.

Keywords: patents; research collaboration; academic patents; collaboration over distance; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L14 O31 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2013-09-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-edu, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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