Public knowledge partnerships in European research projects and knowledge creation across R&D institutional sectors

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of public knowledge partnerships in EU-funded framework programmes (FP) on knowledge creation across a sample of European countries. Different from previous studies, we investigate whether the impact of participation in FP on new knowledge (patents) differs across private companies, universities and public research centres. We find that, while all institutional sectors benefit from joint projects, the main benefits (in terms of patenting activity) go to universities and public research centres, while private companies benefit less. We also find evidence of important complementarities between participation in international research projects and internal innovation drivers (researchers), thus highlighting the crucial role of domestic absorptive capacity for fully benefiting from international cooperation in R&D projects.