The positive effect of public research on industrial innovations is beyond controversy: public research institutions produce knowledge that is subsequently transferred into product and process innovations by private businesses. Besides this rather passive role in commercializing inventions,...

Universities and public research organisations play a vital role not only in the generation of new technological knowledge, but also in its diffusion. We analyse four East German local networks of innovators which differ in structure and innovative performance and investigate the characteristic...

The internal density of a local network is said to increase the region-specific knowledge-stock and might lead to a comparative advantage. However, it might also lead to a lock-in situation, if local trajectories are directed towards inferior solutions. Accordingly it is argued that successful...