Explaining the Geography of Co-Patenting in the Scientific Community: A Social Network Analysis

Collaboration networks within a French cluster: Do partners really interact with each other?

“…From the empirical articles about collaborative innovation processes published over the 20 last years, we can identify several types of data used. Interactions between firms and/or research labs within innovation networks can take different forms and can be measured by different indicators, in particular alliances (Gay and Dousset ; Stuart et al ; Gilsing et al ), co‐authorship in scientific publications (Ponds et al ; Fritsch and Kauffeld‐Monz ; Hoekman et al ), co‐patenting (Hussler and Ronde ; Carayol and Roux ; Breschi and Lissoni ; Hanaki et al ), European Programmes (Breschi and Cusmano ; Roediger‐Schluga and Barber ; Autant‐Bernard et al ) and research consortia (Busom and Fernandez‐Ribas ; Cassiman et al ; Vicente et al ), or even PhD students co‐supervised between science and industry sponsors (Levy ; Bouba‐Olga et al ). To collect these different data, some authors build their own one, mainly using case studies or surveys (Boardman and Bozeman ; Arvanitis et al ; Bekkers and Freitas ; Cassiman et al ), while others use existing datasets, including international surveys as the European community innovation survey (Cassiman and Veugelers ; Belderbos et al ; Mora‐Valentin et al ).…”

“…The studies on innovation collaborative processes noted above have usually been conducted in combination with some recent advance in sociological theory, and particularly social network analysis: indeed, Autant‐Bernard et al (, p. 342) refer to ‘the networked nature of knowledge creation and the geography of innovation’. Their objective is to identify, from the network structure and the actors' positions, the best ways to foster innovation (Hussler and Ronde ; Balland ; Balland et al ).…”

“…Numerous authors have tried to identify the factors which might favour collaborations between innovation actors, whether science‐industry linkages or inter‐firm collaborations. Many of the studies previously cited – working on patents, publications or common participation to European Framework Programs (Autant‐Bernard et al ; Hussler and Ronde ; Ponds et al ; Carayol and Roux ; Gilsing et al ; Levy et al ; Fritsch and Kauffeld‐Monz ; Hoekman et al ) – use social network analysis to test the impact of different forms of proximity on innovation activities. Indeed, it is widely assumed that proximity between partners – whatever its form or definition – has a positive impact on their likelihood to interact and to innovate.…”

Modalités de coordination de projets collaboratifs pour l'innovation : entre interactions en face-à-face et interactions à distance

“…De nouveaux outils ont été mobilisés par les chercheurs, notamment l'analyse des réseaux sociaux, pour mieux comprendre ces phénomènes. L'objectif des travaux recourant à cette méthode est d'identifier, à partir de l'étude de la structure des réseaux et de la position des acteurs, l'organisation optimale du processus d'innovation (HUSSLER et RONDE, 2007 ;BALLAND, 2012 ;BALLAND et al 2013).…”