The Internationalization of Corporate R&D

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CORPORATE R&Dbuild on, and are interlinked to various degrees with, the national science and technologybase. The concept of local or regional clusters, for example, emphasizes thepresence and strategic collaboration between universities, research institutes and innovativecompanies, combining public and private resources and capabilities at a particulargeographical location.Governments in different countries seek to identify and support the establishment ofinnovative clusters in strong areas. Policymakers often take an integrated approach todesigning cluster policies, including measures that will attract foreign companies,capital and talent. See Andersson et al. 2004 for an overview of cluster policies. Thedifferences in internationalization patterns and driving forces for different industrysectors must be taken into account when designing policies. For example, sciencebasedsectors (e.g. pharmaceuticals) are attracted to excellent research centers, andstandards-based sectors (e.g. communications) are attracted to leading markets.The importance of the dynamics of local or regional innovation clusters from a globalizationperspective has been stressed in the Swedish context (NUTEK 2002). Policiesinclude: supporting local links between industry and universities; creating local criticalmass of R&D; and building local infrastructures with the objective of creating clustersor “hotspots” of economic activity dispersed over the country (Söderström 2001,Eliasson & Eliasson 2005).Excellent R&D Conditions (B1)At the core of innovative clusters is the production of knowledge. Increased competitionand specialization drives the creation of centers of excellence that might developinto regional or even global science and innovation hubs or nodes. Such concentrationsof world-class science and knowledge-intensive activities within national borders areimportant for attracting international as well as national investments.For example, science parks are used to attract foreign R&D investment. Approximately600 parks existed worldwide in 2004, and two thirds of these were located in the U.S.and Europe (Andersson et al. 2004). Apart from the Silicon Valley region, there are anumber of other well-known parks: Research Triangle Park (United States), SophiaAntipolis (France), Hsinchu Science Park (Taiwan), Zhongguancum Science Park(China), the Electronic City in Bangalore (India) and Kista Wireless Valley (Sweden).The political efforts aimed at strengthening the national science and technology baseoften include policies to focus R&D resources in particular areas of national strength,with the explicit or implicit purpose of attracting investments, including R&D, frommultinational companies. In the case of Sweden, see Regeringskansliet 2005a.41