AN AGENT-BASED SIMULATION STUDY OF THE AUSTRIAN COMPETENCE CENTRES PROGRAMME: THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC FUNDING ON KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

An ongoing debate revolves around determining effects of public funds for research given the considerable complexity of the innovation process. While government intervention is usually not questioned per se, appraising the role of specific intervention types remains a lively debated issue in the policy arena. In this paper, we suggest computer simulation as an alternative approach to ex-ante evaluation of government funding measures. We present an agent-based model of the Vienna Life Sciences innovation system and simulate knowledge production under alternative funding scenarios. Hereby, we focus on the effect of the Austrian competence centres programme ? a science-industry collaboration scheme that has earned international recognition in recent years. In the model, agents represent companies, research organisations and universities from the Vienna Life Sciences innovation system with an empirically calibrated set of knowledge-related attributes and strategies. Through own and collaborative research, agents are able to create different types of knowledge output, representing scientific publications, patents as well as high-tech jobs, which serve as indicators of system performance. On top of a standard policy mix, the reference scenario with a (perpetuated) competence centres programme is compared with a termination scenario (assuming a competence centres programme discontinued after 15 years) and with an alternative scenario without a competence centres programme. The simulation reveals interesting conclusions regarding the required level and duration of research funds for sustaining output performance and the main potential beneficiaries.