The positive effect of public research on industrial innovations is beyond controversy: public research institutions produce knowledge that is subsequently transferred into product and process innovations by private businesses. Besides this rather passive role in commercializing inventions,...

The concept of Bridging Technologies (BTs) refers to technologies which are important for the regional knowledge base by connecting different fields and thereby enabling technological development. We provide analytical tools to identify BTs and study their evolution over time. We apply these...

Does exporting intermediate goods induce learning from importers? In this paper, we examine to what extent learning from German industries can be explained by knowledge spillovers, channeled through the export of intermediate goods. Our study is based on a sample of 27 German trade partners in...

We analyze the evolution of the international collaboration network in photovoltaic research. Using data on scientific publications for the period 1980-2015, we apply social network analysis to trace the evolution of the global network of countries and national research networks of...

We compare two leading regional innovation systems (RIS) in East Germany with two RIS in West Germany of about the same size and internal settlement structure. Our analyses show that differences in the performance between the regions cannot easily be related to the structural properties of the...

The flow of knowledge through interaction between innovative actors is central to the systemic view of innovation. We review the literature on interaction and innovator networks with a focus on regional aspects. To illustrate the relevance of these relations, we apply social network analysis...

Universities and public research organisations play a vital role not only in the generation of new technological knowledge, but also in its diffusion. We analyse four East German local networks of innovators which differ in structure and innovative performance and investigate the characteristic...

The internal density of a local network is said to increase the region-specific knowledge-stock and might lead to a comparative advantage. However, it might also lead to a lock-in situation, if local trajectories are directed towards inferior solutions. Accordingly it is argued that successful...