The Internationalization of Corporate R&D

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CORPORATE R&DAnother study using patent data between 1996 and 2000 shows that European companieshad a greater tendency to locate R&D activities abroad than American and Japanesecompanies. The study also confirmed that multinational companies from smallcountries, like Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, had the highest degreesof internationalization of corporate R&D (Criscuolo & Patel 2003).2.3.5 R&D Collaboration and AlliancesThe number of newly established international strategic technology alliances has increasedconsiderably since the 1980s, according to studies based on the CooperativeAgreements and Technology Indicators database (MERIT CATI). However, during thesame period, the share of international R&D partnerships in relation to the total numberof R&D partnerships has declined. The share of international R&D partnerships fellbelow 50 percent during the late 1990s. The largest share of R&D partnerships in thedatabase was intra-North America (about 41 percent during the 1990s) followed byEU-North America partnerships (25 percent). The strong growth of intra-NorthAmerica collaboration largely explains why international partnerships, despite growthin absolute numbers, still take only about 50 percent of the total number of R&D partnerships(Hagedoorn 2002).The industry composition of alliances shifted strongly between 1991 and 2001. The shareof pharmaceuticals and biotechnology grew from 11 to 58 percent while alliances in theinformation technology industry declined from 54 to 28 percent (UNCTAD 2005a).Other surveys confirm that most cooperative agreements were found to be with national,rather than international, partners. More than 80 percent of partnerships amonginnovative European companies involved national partners in both manufacturing andservices during the late 1990s (Eurostat-CIS survey, OECD 2005a).Data for U.S. companies in MERIT CATI shows that about 80 percent of technologyalliances from 1991 to 2001 involved at least one U.S.-owned company. Of these alliances,about half involved only U.S.-owned companies (regardless of where the companieswere located) (NSF 2004, see also NSF 2006).2.3.6 Surveys of Foreign R&D Facilities and ProjectsA number of surveys of company-level data also reflect the increasing internationalizationof corporate R&D. In 1992, the U.S. was host for 250 foreign R&D facilities, ofwhich many were newly established. The number grew rapidly to 715 facilities ownedby 375 foreign parent companies in 1997. Two hundred fifty-one of the facilities wereestablished by companies from Japan, followed by Germany, UK and France. At thesame time the U.S. had established 169 R&D facilities abroad, 88 in Europe and 45 inJapan (Dalton & Serapio 1999). See also a similar study in Kuemmerle 1999.72