Clusters of excellence and science spillovers to industry: Evidence from additive manufacturing

Hanna Hottenrott, Thomas Schaper and Julian Schwierzy

No 26-013, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Competitive public research funding is an important policy instrument to foster scientific progress. The effective design of such funding schemes and whether they generate knowledge spillovers to industrial inventions, however, remains debated. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of geographically localized forum grants - Clusters of Excellence - awarded for additive manufacturing research under Germany's Excellence Initiative from 2006-2012. Using synthetic difference-in-differences estimation, we find that Clusters increased local scientific output in funding-related domains in the right tail of the scientific impact distribution - as measured by article citations - compared to non-funded applicant groups in similar locations. While patenting by nearby firms remained unaffected at the extensive margin, we find evidence for significant knowledge spillovers to local industry. These manifested as a rise in the number of high-impact firm patents confined to related technical areas, and Clusters receiving a significantly larger number of prior art citations from industry patents, compared to the control group, which were geographically localized and confined to top publications. Our findings support the effectiveness of forum-based funding programs for top science and provide dual implications for research and industrial policy.

Keywords: Frontier science; research funding; knowledge spillovers; industry-science linkages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 O31 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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