Title: A framework for assessing innovation collaboration partners and its application to BRICs

Authors: Giuditta De Prato; Daniel Nepelski

Addresses: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Calle del Inca Garcilaso 3, 41092 Seville, Spain ' European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Calle del Inca Garcilaso 3, 41092 Seville, Spain

Abstract: We develop a framework for assessing innovation collaboration partners. Based on the studies explaining the internationalisation of inventive activity, we identify four elements relevant as drivers of innovation collaboration. These elements include inventive capacity, technological specialisation patterns, openness to international innovation collaboration and economic potential of technology. In order to make the framework operational, we propose a set of patent-based indicators that capture the relevant elements. This way the proposed framework serves as a tool to both assess the potential of inventive collaboration and to anticipate benefits of such collaboration. In a second step, we apply the framework to analyse the attractiveness of BRIC countries as potential partners for innovation collaboration. Our analysis shows that BRICs do not only differ in terms of inventive performance, but also in terms of the openness to international collaboration or the economic potential of technology developed by these countries.

Keywords: collaborative innovation; science and technology collaboration; technology globalisation; patent analysis; BRICs; framework; internationalisation; technology management; patents; partner assessment; partner selection; collaboration partners; BRIC countries; Brazil; Russia; India; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2013.055164

International Journal of Technology Management, 2013 Vol.62 No.2/3/4, pp.102 - 127

Published online: 10 Sep 2013 *

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