Determinants of cross-regional R&D collaboration: some empirical evidence from Europe in biotechnology

In this study, we focus on the pattern of cross-regional R&D collaborations through which voluntary knowledge flows and accompanying spillovers might occur. Our aim is to investigate the processes that give rise to the observed network configuration in order to identify hampering factors of knowledge diffusion, with a particular interest in the role of geographical proximity and differences in territorial features. We make use of the data on project proposals submitted to the 7th Framework Programme in the field of biotechnology. We build a non-valued inter-regional R&D cooperation network among a set of European regions and study its formation through exponential random graph models (Frank and Strauss in J Am Stat Assoc 81(395):832–842, 1986; Wasserman and Pattison in Psychometrika 61(3):401–425, 1996). Besides the role played by absorptive capacities, the empirical results reveal that contiguity affects the pattern of cross-regional collaborations not only via edge formation among neighbours but also through a triadic closure process which links neighbouring regions to non-neighbours. Furthermore, triadic closure is found out to be in play among highly populated regions and regions including capital cities.