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

In this paper, we develop a framework for assessing innovation collaboration partners. Based on the studies explaining the internationalisation of inventive activity, we identify four elements that are drivers of innovation collaboration: inventive capacity, technological specialization patterns, openness to international innovation collaboration and the 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 a collaboration. In a second step, we apply the framework to the analysis of the attractiveness of BRIC countries as potential partners for innovation collaboration. Our analysis shows that BRICs not only differ in terms of inventive performance, but also in terms of their openness to international collaboration, or the economic potential of technology developed by these countries.