Collaborative R&D in NewMaterials Innovation - Challenges for the Management ofKnowledge and Appropriability

Extensive research has been conducted on collaborative R&D in the last decades. Moststudies concentrated on multinational enterprises in traditional industries andpharmaceuticals. In this paper we focus on collaborative R&D in new materials development.This field can hardly be related to a specific industry, as new materials often have an impacton the innovation process of multiple industries. Another feature of R&D in new materials isthe need to work in interdisciplinary teams. Both factors lead to a high complexity of R&Dcollaborations in the field of new materials. How to manage knowledge and appropriability inthese complex collaboration settings has been an unsolved and rarely discussed challenge,especially for the case of collaborations between public research organizations and privatefirms.[...]