The Network of Subsidized and Spontaneous R&D Cooperation between Belgian and Foreign Firms, Research Institutes and universities: A Graph-theoretical Approach

In this paper we present the preliminary results of a graphtheoretical analysis of the network of R&D co-operation between firms, research institutions and universities in Belgium within an international context. The information contained in the available databases on international R&D co-operation in formal projects and less formal agreements (‘CORDIS’, EUREKA, MERIT-CATI) is combined with information on personal linkages ‘interlocking directorates’), so as to be able to differentiate between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ R&D alliances between companies and other actors of the Belgian knowledge infrastructure (research institutes, universities and government agencies). The proposed methodology stresses, in accordance with recent literature on innovation, the importance of R&D alliances for firms in order to benefit better from innovation opportunities, and for the economy as a whole in terms of the entailed activation of the process of knowledge and technology diffusion.