Barriers to cross-region research and development collaborations in Europe: evidence from the fifth European Framework Programme

The focus of this paper is on cross-region R&D collaboration funded by the fifth EU Framework Programme (FP5). The objective is to measure distance, institutional, language and technological barrier effects that may hamper collaborative activities between European regions. Particular emphasis is laid on measuring discrepancies between two types of collaborative R&D activities, those generating output in terms of scientific publications and those that do not. The study area is composed of 255 NUTS-2 regions that cover the pre-2007 member states of the European Union (excluding Malta and Cyprus) as well as Norway and Switzerland. We employ a negative binomial spatial interaction model specification to address the research question, along with an eigenvector spatial filtering technique suggested by Fischer and Griffith (2008) to account for the presence of network autocorrelation in the origin–destination cooperation data. The study provides evidence that the role of geographical distance as collaborative deterrent is significantly lower if collaborations generate scientific output. Institutional barriers do not play a significant role for collaborations with scientific output. Language and technological barriers are smaller but the estimates indicate no significant discrepancies between the two types of collaborative R&D activities that are in focus of this study.