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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 7/99
Global Research Collaboration and Technological Competition: The European Perspective
Susan U. Raymond (ed.)
A workshop of the New York Academy of Sciences
with the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
Stockholm, Sweden
October 19–21, 1997
Report: June 1998
Table of Contents
In October 1995, the New York Academy of Sciences, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, organized a leadership seminar at the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation to consider future needs and institutional mechanisms for closer global collaboration in science, medicine, and engineering. At that meeting, participants emphasized that national efforts to gain economic strength and market advantage in an increasingly technology-based global economy could rise to cause a chilling effect on the propensity for scientists and engineers to join international research collaboration.
In October 1997, with support from the Wallenberg Foundation, the Academy convened a follow-up meeting in Stockholm at which leaders from Europe, North America, and Asia considered whether the potential for tension between competition and cooperation could erode the collaborative traditions that anchor international scientific endeavors. Will intense global competition over technology endanger scientific collaboration? And, if it did, what price might be paid and what might be done to minimize unnecessary adverse impacts?
Over the last decade, technological mastery and economic prosperity have become nearly synonymous. Business spending on information technology in 1996 totaled $610 billion, a 30% more than in 1992. In 1995, U.S. technology based companies raised $5.2 billion in venture capital, nearly double that raised in 1991. This represented 70 percent of the nation’s venture capital invested and 80 percent of venture capital deals. In Europe, venture capital financing in the life sciences more than doubled between 1992 and 1994, and total venture investment in those three years exceeded half a trillion ecus. Equity markets also provide deep reservoirs for technology financing. Technology stocks represent 14.75 percent of the total market value of Standard and Poor’s Composite Index of 500 stocks, but nearly double that percentage of the NASDAQ Index which represents a broader array of public companies.
This is all good news. But among the adjustments that must follow may be alterations in conventional assumptions about international scientific cooperation. When nations look to science and technology to create advantages in the marketplace and use scarce resources toward that end, the traditional ethos of scientists to cooperate may be overtaken by the new national imperative to compete.
Moreover, the traditionally long-term view of scientific research as a global reservoir of knowledge could be clouded. Research expected to yield long-range general public goods may be undervalued if leaders assign dominant priority to applied research enhancing short-term competitive market advantage. A large literature has been developing on these points, while nations struggle to set national science policy with scarce resources and daunting economic goals.
All agree that vigorous competition in the open market-place encourages innovative applications of scientific advance for public use. Competition leads to new and improved goods, services, and production processes which, in turn, spur economic prosperity. In this sense, decentralized research competition brings benefits that may be of a different character than the benefits of internationally orchestrated cooperation, but are no less important.
Hence, both cooperation and competition are essential to short-term progress and long-term prosperity. The trick is in the balance.
Clarifying Focus and Significance
Why is Collaboration Important?
If it is competition that induces efficiency and the applications of innovation, why is scientific cooperation important? If heightened economic competition chills global scientific cooperation, what is lost? Indeed, estimates are that only 10 percent of R&D takes place within distinctly international programs and institutions. If nation-based R&D provides the predominant platform for innovation, why be concerned about the future of the collaborative process? Six key issues stand out.
First, innovation comes more quickly and efficiently if it draws upon the deepest sources of knowledge, irrespective of geography and irrespective of the physical (or national) location of the research enterprise itself. In general, science has always seen itself, and been seen, as an international process, frequently dependent upon the competition among individual investigators. Sharing and criticizing progress in any one instance minimizes unnecessary duplication of efforts and leads to reliable advance in knowledge. Such long-standing principles of what is now characterized as “pre-competitive” research, the core ideas motivating “science international,” have deep historic roots.
Second, the changing nature of problems deepens the need for collaboration in certain fields. Many new frontiers of knowledge are of such complexity that only cooperation across disciplines, sectors, and geographic nodes of expertise will result in the critical mass of insight necessary to deepen the well of scientific understanding. Moreover, many problems know no geopolitical boundaries. Global environmental goals and worldwide public health measures provide ready examples.
Third, the scope of many scientific endeavors is increasingly beyond the resource capacity of single nations or, in many cases, even limited groups of nations. Projects in experimental high-energy physics, for example, have been viewed this way. The cost of much major scientific infrastructure and equipment has outrun even optimistic budgetary scenarios for most nations.
Fourth, the need for efficiencies is growing. Irrespective of the costs of any particular facility or scientific endeavor, there is a growing sense that capacity must be efficiently sized. The percentage of R&D investments emanating from commercial (i.e., non-governmental) sources is growing in most nations, reflecting tight public budgets. Under such conditions, replication and duplication of capacity within and between nations may not be sustainable. The pressure to share capacity will come from the political and governance process even if it does not come from within the scientific community. Furthermore, management of international projects must be improved to contribute to greater efficiency. But, efficient managers are everywhere in demand.
Fifth, the number, type, and location of institutions involved in the global research enterprise has expanded markedly. In particular, by virtue of its talent, infrastructure, and funding, the private sector is now a major actor on the global research stage. Moreover, the research ambitions and institutions are growing in many emerging economies in Asia, Latin America, and even the former Soviet system. This raises greater opportunity for collaboration, yet increases the complexity of forming effective, manageable partnerships.
Sixth, cooperation creates and expands markets as well as spurs innovation. Private corporations locate some laboratories globally not simply to gain specific R&D benefits or to take advantage of immediate costs advantages. Such local cooperation creates new market insights, and in so doing expands markets themselves.
Why Europe?
All nations and regions aim to strike the most productive balance between market-based competition and scientific cooperation. In Europe, the tensions between competition and cooperation could become intense. As it deepens its unification process, Europe will consolidate its economic and competitive positions within the global economy. The question is whether the collaborative relationship of European research institutions and scientists to the rest of the globe will suffer. Within European science, the drive toward competition could place a premium on very applied R&D, siphon resources and attention away from long-term projects, reinforce the protection of intellectual assets, and weaken the imperatives for international scientific exchanges.
Much discussion and scores of initiatives have been taken to strengthen scientific collaboration within Europe as the region advances its unification process. Significant problems remain. Europe as a whole remains relatively under-invested in science and technology. Moreover, there is an emerging consensus that, while European science ranks near the top in terms of quality and in terms of its educational foundation, it is less successful in linking that capacity to market-based innovation. As the global economy becomes more densely knowledge-based, these trends could lead Europe to turn its scientific resources inward.
Experience teaches that this would be unfortunate. Collaborative efforts not only lead to scientific advance, they broaden networks and hence markets for the consequent product innovation.
Pre-Conditions for Successful Cooperation
Cooperation can take many forms, from outright merges of institutions, to joint ventures, to loose sharing of results and data, to formal networks, to informal networks. The relative weight of private, government, and university institutions, however, can vary considerably by type of problem, type of cooperative arrangement, and geographic location. For example, in the United States, the majority of research is funded by the private sector, which also accounts for nearly 80% of the employment of scientists and engineers. In Europe, government’s role is much more important, both directly and as the source of research support for universities. In Sweden, for example, nearly 100% of government research resources are focused on universities.
The essence of all cooperation, however, is the flow of intellectual and human assets between and among cooperating institutions such that knowledge becomes a shared resource. Collaboration works best where goals are clear and shared, and results are equally valued by all.
Moreover, it is generally felt that the focus of attention on the benefits and risks of such cooperation occur at the level of basic science and the pre-competitive phase of innovation.
However, whether the form of collaboration, or the substance, or the size of the endeavor could affect future propensity to collaborate is very much a question.
“Size” in cooperative ventures can be thought of in at least two ways: size of partners and size of problems. The question is whether elements of size affect the propensity to cooperate in scientific ventures or the likelihood of success.
Size of Partners
The benefits of cooperation may be greatest to smaller partners. Nations with few resources or an underdeveloped scientific base gain greatly from participation in global ventures which present opportunities to gain knowledge, experience, or institutional access not otherwise available. Within Europe, lack of symmetry has complex results. A commitment to focus on internal collaboration to benefit European nations less well endowed with R&D capacity would strengthen many nations, and hence the total stock of capacity within Europe. On the other hand, it would also risk re-directing resources away from global collaborative arrangements. The resulting tensions — between those who would gain from collaborative efforts among larger nations around the world and those who would gain from greater attention to resource transfers and collaboration between large and small nations of Europe — can become sources of disagreement and can divert policy attention. Is it more important for Europe’s leaders to participate in a worldwide-coordinate effort in every research or to strengthen physics and engineering in European countries that spend less than 1% on R&D?
Similarly, the links between small, entrepreneurial companies and large national or international endeavors can be problematic. Often smaller companies are very product focused and move quickly to exploit R&D advances. The pace of their research, together with their relatively small resource base, make its difficult to interlock their capacity with global efforts. Yet, these very companies may house the latest cutting edge science and are often peopled with the kinds of creative, entrepreneurial scientists whose capacities are precisely those needed to address complex global problems. Software and biotechnology firms illustrate these attributes.
Among multinational corporations, the trend is toward decentralizing research operations, and emphasizing partnerships with universities in local markets. Large, central corporate research capacity is giving way to more nimble, marker-sensitive research capacity located close to the client. While this has created a perception of a huge corporate downsizing of research commitments, it is simply a change in strategy to emphasize local collaboration and research efficiency. Many large U.S. and European companies enter into international alliances (and increase their total R&D investment) without regard to geographic boundaries or governmental priorities. But their time horizons are shortening even as global research projects require longer timetables. In such circumstances, how can the private sector be engaged in global research endeavors?
Size of Problems
It is perhaps easiest to forge cooperative alliances on problems whose sheer size and whose inherent cross-border causes and effects remove possibilities for effective understanding or action by any nation or firm. Global warming provides an obvious example. It is also more fruitful to organize collaboration where the scale of the research involved is huge, complex, and cross-disciplinary, as in oceanographic exploration or space science.
But, large size does not always mitigate conflict over the appropriability of resulting knowledge. The Human Genome Project, which spans the disciplines and encompasses virtually every major life sciences research center in the world, continues to face questions from nations and national industries about exclusive access to, or at least right-of-first-refusal for, the resultant knowledge which might have the potential for product development.
Moreover, size creates its own management problems. A large, complex problem often requires a large, complex network of individuals and Institutions engaged in the research endeavor. In 1995-96, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN provided services to 7152 scientific users of which nearly 3000 came from non-member states. The larger the network, the more difficult it is to manage information and coordinate work. Without sophisticated management and sustained commitment, collaboration that results from size and complexity can itself slow scientific progress and hence sow the seeds of its own demise.
Global Problems
It is easier to motivate and structure collaboration on problems whose effects are felt broadly across nations and institutions. Prime examples are problems of the oceans and the atmosphere where collaboration can be distributed across nations and among scientific disciplines and where solutions are deeply linked to economic growth and prosperity. “Stakeholding” in the problem facilitates the willingness to sign on to finding causes and implementing solutions. This is particularly true when the collaboration needed is in basic science.
Focusing on global problems also provides opportunities to internationalize cooperation by including developing nations. Historically in Europe, such relationships were seen as grounded in philanthropy. In the future, that will no longer be the case. Collaboration will be a two-way street of mutual benefit. Emerging economies worldwide can and will participate in global scientific efforts to solve shared problems.
There are, however, at least two significant problems that collaboration on global problems engenders. Where should the effort be located? And, who will appropriate the benefits?
Location of major collaborative research is a continuing dilemma. A major research institution is not just a scientific status symbol or a signature political mark in the global arena, it is an economic engine. Such institutions may generate 10,000 well-paid jobs via direct employment and indirect provision of goods and services. These jobs have high marginal value in a local economy. Their payroll is often paid in large part by resource transfers from collaborating nations; they represent a net inflow of resources which creates employment and, it should be noted, expands the local tax base. But, they require infrastructure and scientific capacity, as well as significant initial levels of investment capacity. Hence, they are unlikely to be located on the basis of geographic equality. In the private sector, they will be located where the net return on investment is greatest; in the public sector they will be located where the political process most successfully combines the articulation of benefits with constituent advocacy.
Collaboration on global problems can also run afoul of problems with appropriability. In the private sector, agreeing on who will own what as a result of successful research is a pre-condition to collaboration. Lawyers and shareholders peer over scientific shoulders from the inception of collaboration. In public and university collaboration on a global scale, the problem of who owns innovation can be more difficult. If a multinational academic team develops an innovative technology in a research facility financed by multiple governments, who will be permitted to apply for a patent and develop and market the innovation? And what benefits will every other party to the effort reap? Who will say who will gain?
The Problem of Quality
It is generally felt that research collaboration increases quality. The best of the world’s scientists working together on critical problems totals more than the sum of its parts. The synergies of capabilities and the open flows of ideas will lead to better solutions more quickly than can be achieved by individuals working alone. Past initiatives such as the International Geophysical research in the 1950s and 1960s, and major facilities such as CERN and Fermilab, confirm this outlook.
Such a simple view, however, does not fully confront the quality issue. Where collaboration is dictated as part of a political process divorced from scientific standards, quality can suffer. Research institutions can become partners not by natural affinity of either expertise or research agenda, but by virtue of the pressures of domestic or foreign policy or the attraction of budgetary resources. Forced into collaborative arrangements, institutions may see more burden than benefit in their working arrangements. Asymmetries of research capacity, experience, or scientific interest can then erode standards and compromise the quality of research and its outcomes.
This is a difficult and sensitive problem. On the one hand, the benefits of collaboration are often clear and hence collaborative modes of action are often to be encouraged. On the other hand, the ultimate marriage of research institutions or topics must evolve from their own internal interests. The benefits must be clear, and the motivations shared. Such pre-requisites are easier to ensure in the private sector than in publicly-supported work. For corporations, the market is the great arbiter. If there is no profit to be made, there is little collaborative motivation. In the public and academic sectors, however, concerns over the quality implications of collaboration argue for “bottom up” collaborative arrangements, encouraged but not dictated by governments, with the freedom to establish partnerships best suited to the mutual needs of the partners.
But even this approach exacts a price. How can such bottom up arrangements become open to those comparatively weak institutions or nations seeking to increase their scientific capacity (and hence economic competitiveness) through collaboration? If collaborative arrangements are voluntary and selective, those with less capacity may be excluded from full participation in the arrangements because of that deficit. In turn, their own improvement will be hindered, and the global unevenness of S&T resources will perpetuate. If mandatory involvement reduces quality (real or merely perceived), affects efficiency (real or merely perceived), or reduces the willingness of other institutions to participate in collaborative arrangements, the support for collaboration itself may be undermined.
There are no easy solutions to this dilemma. Balance is important, and careful case-by-case evolution is essential.
The effects of time on the propensity for cooperation, and on the success of such endeavors, are also important. The element of time has four dimensions.
First, collaborative efforts require time to be established, especially those which are conceived of as formal networks or institutions. They require, for example, the establishment of trust among collaborators, agreement on decision-making procedures, resolution of intellectual property issues. Not only is the process lengthy, but time spent structuring and sustaining collaboration is not free. The opportunity costs of time can be high, especially where innovation is fast-paced or the problems are pressing and changing. Hence, time can be a major barrier to collaborative initiatives.
Second, time also affects the individual scientist’s propensity to collaborate by virtue of the relationship between time and the structure of scientific careers. A study by the Science Policy Research Unit of the University of Sussex indicated that scientists between the ages of 35 and 60 have a substantially higher probability of participation in collaborative efforts than at any other age. Collaborative participation among younger scientists was particularly rare. The structure of scientific careers appears to impede transnational collaboration in early career stages; young scientists are interested in completing degree requirements or focusing on immediate opportunities to establish significant research results. If collaboration and international experience increases the time needed to climb those early rungs of the career ladder, such arrangements will not be seen as attractive. Concerted effort to create reasonable incentives for collaborative arrangements and exchanges for younger scientists may be necessary to overcome these barriers.
Third, the changing time dimensions of the product cycle also exert important influences on collaborative efforts. In many fields, especially in biotechnology and information technology, the time lag between scientific research and commercial exploitation is narrowing. Although formal collaboration is more easily (and advantageously) undertaken at the pre-competitive research stage, shortening product cycles act to diminish collaborative opportunities and heighten the importance of potentially divisive issues (such as intellectual property protection) within collaborative arrangements.
These tensions are not felt equally in all research communities, however. In general, industry and academia have had very different perspectives on time which can complicate collaborative efforts. In a highly competitive global marketplace, industry is deeply driven by time. This diverges from the more natural flow of research over time in university settings, particularly for research in which discovery is unpredictable. In the United States, however, these differences are blurring. University-industry partnerships are growing, and research is increasingly being pulled by the marketplace. Venture capital is deep, university professors frequently are also the presidents of start-up technology companies, and even graduate students are entrepreneurs. Hence the sense that “time is short” is increasingly pervasive. Although perhaps less quickly than in the U.S., the forces of technological change are also affecting Europe’s scientific community where the tradition of research pushing innovation, and hence a long-term view, remains strong. Increasingly, private corporations are locating research capacity where university reservoirs are well stocked with human capability. Microsoft’s selection of Cambridge as its research site provides an illustrative case. The expectation is that Cambridge students and faculty will become involved in Microsoft’s research effort, and the university research asset will become more deeply integrated into commercial strategies.
The time dimension of university-industry collaboration also varies by sector or discipline. In some disciplines, such as theoretical physics, projects can require collaboration among hundreds of research centers in dozens of countries and consume almost the entire career of a scientist. Research objectives and project complexity dictate patient partnerships.In life sciences, on the other hand, the “product” being commercialized is the research process and environment. The biotechnology industry is, in a sense, part of the research capacity for the multinational pharmaceutical industry. Time is a critical factor in research in this industry. Research projects are measured in months, not in careers.
Fourth, the time-frame of problems themselves also affects the nature and structure of collaboration. Many global problems result from decades (even centuries) of behavior or change, and their resolution may require equally long periods of time. Although shared stake-holding provides a centripetal force holding collaborative commitments together, the patience and financial stability needed to stay the collaborative course are often in short supply. This is especially true of multilateral arrangements. Tenacity over long periods of time may well become one of the most important characteristics of successful global approaches to scientific and technological collaboration.
Finally, when should time run out? When is it time to stop a research collaboration? In the private sector, the “sunset clause” is the market; when investments in research collaboration do not produce innovation for the marketplace, time runs out. The public sector clock that often dictates time to collaboration, however, is often a political one; when political patience wears thin, then collaboration dissipates with budgetary commitment. Yet, research collaboration may have an objective productivity cycle. Although a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (get cite from Kenney-Wallace) indicates that collaboration research teams peaked in their performance after 3-4 years, when and how to stop multilateral collaborative research efforts remains to be examined.
Will the future change these trends? The great unknown is the effect of the worldwide web on time and collaboration. The Internet, of course, both creates wealth and facilitates communication. Practical applications of the Internet to technology, communications, and commerce allow products to be created and customized for the marketplace, often as collaborative efforts among companies or other institutions. In turn, this increases corporate value and creates innovation, employment, and investment opportunity.
Moreover, the ability of the vast network of the world’s scientific institutions to communicate instantaneously via the Internet promotes the flow of information and hence sparks collaboration. It enables the human interaction necessary for collaboration, and promotes that interaction irrespective of geography or level of economic development. As an efficient communications tool, it can also significantly reduce the transactions costs of collaborative ventures, and hence provide an incentive for collaborative efforts. This can be particularly crucial for efforts which require large networks of scientists and scientific institutions.
On the other hand, the Internet is a pathway between people. Trust between individuals and institutions remains key to global collaboration. The Internet cannot entirely substitute for the personal, face-to-face scientific exchanges that build familiarity across the global scientific enterprise. If the human web of interaction is not vibrant, the electronic web cannot be effective.
Moreover, as a pathway, the Internet does not distinguish quality of content. As it currently exists, it increasingly carries a vast repository of the best of research together with what can only be described as less than the best of research. The individual time and effort needed to sort fact from less-than-fact is not insignificant. Several efforts to introduce peer review mechanisms into electronic media are underway; their success may resolve many of these problems. But, the Internet as a tool for scientific collaboration currently is often unrefined.
Moreover, the future role of the Internet in global scientific collaboration may change with changes in financing. The propensity to use the Internet is not insignificantly affected by its cost. As a virtually free resource, it is understandably widely used. If and when use requires monetary outlays, the level of use, as well as the capabilities of those who are able to access it, will change as well.
In the public and academic sectors, the nation-state is still the prime funder of collaborative efforts.
National-International Tensions
Yet, national budgets are under increasing pressure, and, appropriately, those responsible for those budgets define priorities in terms of national objectives. There is a tension between the cooperative inclinations of many scientists and the budget realities that affect both the national support of those scientists and the international interests they may have. At the margin, governments protect their domestic base and view most international organizations with skepticism. Their view of global resource demands are increasingly hard-nosed, and only the clearly urgent need has any certainty of a sympathetic hearing. When major cuts are needed, large international efforts are often the first targets. A case in point is the current debate in Japan over the fate of contributions to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (TTER) in the face of the domestic need to shrink Japan’s $2 trillion overall budget deficit.
Moreover, when nations do make commitments to finance international endeavors, the fear (and often the fact) is that national research funding will suffer. Budgetary allocations for research are seldom upwardly mobile; controversy within national scientific communities about domestic needs often ensues from cooperative commitments. In the U.S., large allocations to international projects frequently run into opposition from domestic scientists who fear that such allocations will be taken from funds for domestic research. The current debate within the U.S. and several European nations over national contributions to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN typifies this problem.
Trustworthy Commitments
Finally, public funding for collaborative efforts often runs afoul of long-term commitments. Can any nation or region count on a “yes” to collaborate from any other? And for how long? Will the stitches joining cooperative efforts together hold when domestic competitive forces raise controversies, especially if the money involved is significant? In the U.S., agreements for multi-year commitments can be made by the Executive Branch, and authorizations for multi-year expenditures can be made in Congress, but, in fact, appropriation of the necessary funds to keep those promises must be made each year. Budgetary pressures change and interests shift; actually obtaining the out-years funding is often difficult. While legal parameters are different in other nations, changing budgetary pressures are a common denominator. Major global collaborative commitments are only as solid as the budget’s bottom line year-to-year.
In the private sector, a similar phenomenon is emerging. Rapid technological change and a fastpaced global market have shortened corporate time-horizons. Long-term commitments are difficult to obtain, and even more difficult to sustain. Even more so when they are international. The “vital sign” is their contribution to meeting corporate goals; in general, only half of the 150 cross-border alliances studied in a recent business survey met their strategic and financial goals.
Fairness
Agreeing to contribute to cooperation often creates debate over what is a fair distribution of the financing burden. Controversy over the distribution of funding responsibility in the Human Frontier Science Program, for example, turns on level of funding for the effort which should be contributed by Japan, the U.S., the European Union, and European nations. Currently, Japan supplies 80 percent of the funding. At this point, what is “fair” in terms of outcome enters the debate. The competition for grants is intense, and Japanese scientists only receive 7 percent of the grant funding. If metrics in terms of grants-received or procurement-won are no longer accepted as adequate measures of “fairness” (and, where innovation is fast-paced and science competitive, they are increasingly recognized as inappropriate — witness the demise of juste retour within EC S&T collaboration), what is fair and how can it be measured so as to remove a barrier to collaboration?
Top-Down or Bottom- Up?
Is the public financing of collaboration more secure if money generates ideas or if ideas seek money? Contradictory anecdotes abound. On the one hand, some experience teaches that government funding sources will perceive greater self-interest in collaborative efforts if government funders commit resources to the overall concepts of collaboration and participate in picking the topics. This “top-down” approach ensures that funding is secure before collaborative agendas are determined, and, in part, provides motivation for pursuing collaboration and working through any disagreements among potential participants. Money triggers and channels program activity. Without such firm support, scientists become “special pleaders” in the public budgetary process, advocates with ideas seeking public funds in competition with advocates from a myriad of other social sectors. Scientific leadership is often not comfortable participating in the necessarily political process of funding that ensues.
On the other hand, without the specifics of collaboration firmly determined, it is often difficult to obtain government funding commitment. Hence, other experience teaches that a “bottom-up” approach results in more secure funding. Such approaches also put the scientific community in control of defining priorities and collaborative activities. Moreover, when the research agenda is determined by the scientific community in advance of funding, its deeper non-partisan rationale may result in more stable funding over time. Political cycles, which tend to periodically wash away budgetary commitments with election results, may have less effect on research funding that flows from an apolitical scientific rationale.
The global scientific community, public, academic, and corporate, is not without experience in structuring successful collaborative effort. In the future, and under conditions of rapid pervasive global technological competition, what priorities and behaviors across borders can be identified — in inter-industrial collaboration, collaboration in the broad links among nations or between nations involving private industry, collaboration between universities and industry — that promote effective innovation without compromising competitive positions of either industries or nations? What does case experience teach about “best practices” by scientific discipline or industrial category?
Experience indicates that important elements of such best practices in launching a cooperative program include:
- clearly shared expectations
- joint planning and agreement on deadlines for the collaborative project from conceptualization forward;
- pre-agreement resolution of; or agreed approaches to, potentially divisive issues, especially regarding intellectual property
- to the extent that public funding is involved, early communication with the political process to ensure understanding and a continuous flow of information
Once a program is launched, maintaining cooperative efforts requires:
- stable resources
- quality control to ensure credibility within the scientific community
- access to research and results by all participants.
