Exploring larger biotech research firm strategies: Projections from a comparison of small and larger firms

This is an exploratory study of larger biotech firms using insights from a head-to-head comparison of 49 small and 17 large U.S. biotech firms using archival data. We found small and large biotech firms to be significantly different from each other on R&D intensity and funding strategies. The findings are used to project and hypothesize about larger biotech firm growth strategies.Whereas R&D expenses in the small firms exceed total income by a wide margin, larger firms are able to cover most, if not all, of their R&D expenses. Thus, the larger firms are relatively more financially viable. Results also show that the larger firms derive a greater proportion of their revenues from collaborative research agreements (CRAs), which has key implications for revenue growth in these firms.Based on the findings we project R&D expenses and collaborative research revenues for biotech firms as they grow in size.     

Joint R&D projects: Experiences in the context of European technology policy

Joint R&D projects have emerged as a significant model for the development of research and technological activities. Our study examines, through an exploratory analysis, the typology of joint R&D projects and the characteristics of R&D networks in which the projects are developed. In addition, the interrelation between the R&D projects in the context of European Technology Policy is analysed. Findings from survey data collected on joint R&D projects carried out in the context of European Framework Programmes indicate that three groups of R&D projects can be identified (invention, innovation and diffusion projects), and that each of these projects is managed inside the R&D network with a different degree of structuring and external opening. The analysis of interrelations between R&D projects also shows a low, non-linear and non-progressive interrelation. This conclusion is an important question to bear in mind in the design of scientific and technological policies.     

A compared R&D-based and patent-based cross impact analysis for identifying relationships between technologies

The planning of technological research and development (R&D) is demanding in areas with many relationships between technologies. To support decision makers of a government organization with R&D planning in these areas, a methodology to make the technology impact more transparent is introduced. The method shows current technology impact and impact trends from the R&D of an organization's competitors and compares these to the technology impact and impact trends from the organization's own R&D. This way, relative strength, relative weakness, plus parity of the organization's R&D activities in technology pairs can be identified.A quantitative cross impact analysis (CIA) approach is used to estimate the impact across technologies. Our quantitative CIA approach contrasts to standard qualitative CIA approaches that estimate technology impact by means of literature surveys and expert interviews. In this paper, the impact is computed based on the R&D information regarding the respective organization on one hand, and based on patent data representative regarding R&D information of the organization's competitors on the other hand. As an illustration, the application field ‘defence’ is used, where many interrelations and interdependencies between defence-based technologies occur. Firstly, an R&D-based and patent-based Compared Cross Impact (CCI) among technologies is computed. Secondly, characteristics of the CCI are identified. Thirdly, the CCI data is presented as a network to show the overall structure and the complex relationships between the technologies. Finally, changes of the CCI are analyzed over time. The results show that the proposed methodology has the potential to generate useful insights for government organizations to help direct technology investments.     

Characteristics of technology transfer in business ventures: the case of Daejeon, Korea

This article explores the characteristics of venture business and entrepreneurs in Korea to (1) identify technology transfer activities, (2) analyze the differences between technology transfer in linear and nonlinear venture businesses, and (3) guide more effective venture business policy and strategy. This empirical assessment reveals that entrepreneurs have insightful evaluations about their resources and capacities as well as expectations with regard to functions and features of science parks and incubators. Respondents from “linear model”-based start-ups tend to be older and have higher education, employ more basic research and development (R&D) and have more R&D-oriented careers, and have more varied work experience than “nonlinear”-based start-ups. The functions and features of science parks and incubators were generally not considered a critical influence on start-ups nor on the growth of venture businesses. Accordingly, alternative venture-nurturing strategies are discussed as being key to accelerate venture businesses growth.     

Schumpeterian cycles with pro-cyclical R&D

Recent empirical work finds that R&D expenditures are quite pro-cyclical even for firms that are not credit-constrained during downturns. This has been taken as strong evidence against Schumpeterian-style theories of business cycles that emphasize the idea that downturns in production may be good times to allocate labor towards innovative activities. Here we argue that the pro-cyclicality of R&D investment is in fact quite consistent with at least one of these theories. In our analysis we emphasize three key features of R&D investment relative to other types of innovative activity: (1) it uses knowledge intensively, (2) it is a long-term investment with uncertain applications, and (3) it suffers from diminishing returns over time.     

Will Italy meet the ambitious European target for R&D expenditure? Natura non facit saltus

The paper addresses the issue as to whether the Italian scientific and technological system can achieve the Barcelona targets set by the heads of state and government (3% of GDP devoted to R&D by the year 2010) and by the R&D guidelines set by the Italian Ministry for Education, University, and Research (MIUR) (to achieve the level of 1.75% of the ratio in the year 2006).The projections built in the paper show that such objectives are well beyond Italy's potential, and that according to a “natura non facit saltus” (NNFS) projection, the country will be able to raise the ratio from 1.04% in 2002 to 1.55% in 2010. Such projection rests on rather optimistic assumptions: higher priority attached to R&D in the government budget, an increasing propensity of firms to invest their value added in R&D, and an increase of researchers' salaries.The difficulty to achieve the objectives set at the European and national level is due to the low starting point, to the lack of additional investment from 2001 to 2003, and to structural factors such as insufficient supply of qualified human resources, the small size of high-tech industry, and constraints imposed by the reduction of public spending.The attainment of R&D policy objectives is more and more dependent on education, industrial, and public budget policies; the issue of a thorough review of the governance of the whole S&T system at the national level is therefore raised. The situation is accentuated by the fact that decisions taken at national level are conditioned by the European union (through the Framework Program, the regulations regarding state aid to firms, etc.) by multinational enterprises, which operate on a global scale, and by regions in the framework of their autonomy.     

Using resources in R&D policy planning: Brazil, the Amazon and biotechnology

Brazil's research and development (R&D) policies are examined in light of changes in economic direction especially as it pertains to competition. In a competitive environment, regions should develop industrial applications and expertise in areas that coincide with their resources. These could be human resources but could, as in the focus of this paper, be useful resources that differentiate the region from others in the world. This differentiation provides an advantage to the region. Brazil and its Amazon region has the large majority of the world's rare genes. In biotechnology, genes are “green gold,” and Brazil is slowly developing a biotechnology industry and beginning to tap into the Brazilian Amazon region's economic biotech potential. This region has enormous potential for the development of biotech-related technologies and products. This paper discusses the relationship between resources and an R&D strategy using as an example the recent developments in biotechnology research in Brazil and the role of the Amazon region in the development of a Brazilian biotechnology industry. It recommends a number of policy initiatives that will enhance Brazil's focus on biotechnology.     

R&D cluster quality measures and technology maturity

“Innovation indicators” strive to track the maturation of an emerging technology to help forecast its prospective development. One rich source of information is the changing content of discourse of R&D, as the technology progresses. We analyze the content of research paper abstracts obtained by searching large databases on a given topic. We then map the evolution of that topic's emphasis areas.The present research seeks to validate a process that creates factors (clusters) based on term usage in technical papers. Three composite quality measures—cohesion, entropy, and F measure—are computed. Using these measures, we create standard factor groupings that optimize the composite term sets and facilitate comparisons of the R&D emphasis areas (i.e., clusters) over time.The conceptual foundation for this approach lies in the presumption that domain knowledge expands and becomes more application specific in nature as a technology matures. We hypothesize implications for this knowledge expansion in terms of the three factor measures, then observe these empirically for the case of a particular technology—autonomous navigation. These metrics can provide indicators of technological maturation.     

Toward an analytical industry classification

Two kinds of difficulties retard progress in technological forecasting uncertainties inherent in the subject itself and imprecision in its concepts. The latter difficulty exists whenever words have to be used in a general or traditional sense due to the lack of an agreed-upon operational definition. One such word and concept is industry [1]. The object of this paper is to present an operational definition of “industry” for use in forecasting, R&D, or innovative contexts, and to show how predictive, rather than just analogue, statements can then be made about industry and industries.     

Government funding strategy in technology programs

Industrial R&D in a market economy is mainly implemented in the private sector, therefore public funding is a very important tool of government to guide private R&D activities. This paper investigates the experience of funding national programs in a number of industrialized countries, and reaches some preliminary conclusions: (a) To reduce opportunistic behavior and ingrain intrinsic incentive in firms, both competition and cost-sharing principles should be used concurrently in underwriting firms' R&D projects. (b) Competition principles can be applied across many candidate projects around the same time or a series of one-of-a-kind projects over a longer time horizon. (c) The major threat to application of competition principles is that there is no “real competition” due to few qualified candidates in specific technological fields or in some, especially small, countries. (d) In practice, the appropriate cost-sharing level is difficult to determine. Fifty-fifty is used as a rule of thumb in many countries to simplify the decision making and circumvent “bounded rationality.” (e) Full cost endorsement may be another “quantum” alternative for projects urged by government but not felt to be very relevant by firms.     

Integration of Technology Assessment in R&D Management Practices

This paper addresses the question of how technology assessment (TA) can be best integrated in the managment of R&D both at the laboratory and the policy level. The main objective is to present a conceptual framework to situate and evaluate the actual and possible TA infrastructure in Europe. The paper consists of three distinct sections. In section one, the concept and practice of TA are briefly introduced with an emphasis on their actual institutionalizations in Europe. Section two presents a conceptual framework of R&D managment at four levels: the R&D environment, the R&D institution, the R&D process, and the R&D project. The relationship between TA and R&D management is explored for each of the four levels. Finally, in section three the concept of and motives for TA integrated within the laboratory work of scientists and engineers are presented. The basic argument of this paper is that by promoting the integration of TA in R&D managment practices, a significant contribution can be made to (1) increasing the cost-efficiency of research and (2) increase the social responsiblity of scientists. The authors therefore draw up a conceptual framework for the development of R&D-integrated TA practices called Integrated Technology Assessment (ITA).     

政府资助对中小企业创新研发的影响

现阶段我国仍属于新兴市场经济国家,市场机制并不完善,中小企业的生存环境不容乐观.为提升中小企业市场竞争力,各级政府加大对其创新研发的资金和政策扶持力度对帮助其持续稳定发展有着十分重要的意义.本文从深市中小板上市企业中筛选出了471家企业在2014—2018年间的面板数据,利用回归模型进行实证检验,以探究政府资助政策对中小企业创新研发的影响.结果显示:政府的资助政策在整体上对科技研发投入产生了积极的作用,但对创新研发的产出没有直接影响;只有对科技研发人员进行投入才能给创新产出带来积极影响.因而,政府资助应该着重加强对科技人员的投入.     

Subsidized technology and its utilization: Aids for the disabled

Subsidized research into advance technology is one means employed to attain social and ideological goals recognized as vital to a society. Increasing sensitivity to the social uses of technology has recently led to funding of R&D in aids for the disabled. An analysis of 89 such projects between 1979 and 1983 confirm the impact of subsidized public funding on such research, leading to a narrow focus on applied research in specific disability areas with the objective of creating a viable commercial prototype for a highly visible but extremely small number of severely disabled. Subsidized funding also reinforces specialization through selective support of projects by institutional setting. This specialization further focuses research into areas likely to be rewarded by further funding and through this mechanism scientific output matches needs for those whom R&D is subsidized. The impact of subsidized R&D for the disabled can therefore be said to be effective as an example of societal intervention in directing technological advances.     

Research Networks And Organisational Mobility In An Emerging Technological Field: The Case Of Plant Biotechnology

This paper builds on social network theory to understand technological development. Based on the empirical evidence of 367 research organisations in plant biotechnology over a nineteen-year period, we demonstrate how a structural analysis of the research network within the technological community is used to identify four collaboration-based strategic groups of research organisations. The emergence of these groups can be linked to technological breakthroughs in the field. Analyses of the four clusters point to the influence of research collaborations on stratification within an evolving technological domain. Finally, as archival data sources are used to detect incidences of collaborative research and to trace the evolution of R&D networks in an emerging field, we conclude with a discussion of the potential contribution of bibliometric data to understand the development of new technologies in their early, pre-commercial phases.     

政府的科技激励政策对大中型工业企业R&D投入及其专利产出的影响——上海市的实证研究

本文从动态角度运用面板数据分析中的随机效应模型实证研究了上海市政府的科技激励政策对大中型工业企业自筹的R&D投入及其专利产出的影响。本文认为 ,政府的科技拨款资助和税收减免这两个政策工具对大中型工业企业增加自筹的R&D投入都具有积极效果 ,并且政府的拨款资助越稳定效果越好 ;政府拨款资助和税收减免互为补充 ,提高一个的强度也会增加另一个的效果 ,但这个效应以政府税收减免为主。不同来源的R&D支出和不同等级的人力资源对专利产出的影响是不同的 ,自筹的R&D支出对专利产出有着显著的正面作用。     

Modeling stochastic innovation races

We consider a firm moving towards a stochastic final destination to be chosen from a discrete set after a decision period. The decision period itself may be deterministic or stochastic. We assume the firm can move at variable innovation (R&D) speed associated with a monotone nondecreasing variable cost, and it can also stop and move anywhere. There is a fixed cost per time unit “carried” by the firm as well, associated with keeping at the knowledge (technology) frontier. We investigate various types of the firm's optimal trajectory in the R&D race during the decision period. The model is adapted and applied to racing behaviour in the Japanese telecommunication industry.     

Control of SO2 emissions from power plants: A case of induced technological innovation in the U.S.

This paper investigates how the details of government actions induce innovation—the overlapping activities of invention, adoption and diffusion, and learning by doing—in “environmental technology,” products and processes that either control pollutant emissions or prevent emissions altogether. It applies multiple quantitative and qualitative measures of innovation to a case subject to several “technology-push” and “demand-pull” instruments: sulfur dioxide control technology for power plants. The study employs analyses of public R&D funding, patents, expert interviews, learning curves, conference proceedings, and experience curves. Results indicate that: regulation and the anticipation of regulation stimulate invention; technology-push instruments appear to be less effective at prompting invention than demand-pull instruments; and regulatory stringency focuses inventive activity along certain technology pathways. Increased diffusion of the technology results in significant and predictable operating cost reductions in existing systems, as well as notable efficiency improvements and capital cost reductions in new systems. Government plays an important role in fostering knowledge transfer via technical conferences, as well as affecting the pattern of collaborative relationships within the technical research community via regulatory changes that affect the market for the technology. Finally, the case provides little evidence for the claim that cap-and-trade instruments induce innovation more effectively than other instruments.     

Research,Innovation And Productivi[Ty: An Econometric Analysis At The Firm Level

This paper studies the links between productivity, innovation and research at the firm level. We introduce three new features: (i) A structural model that explains productivity by innovation output, and innovation output by research investment: (ii) New data on French manufacturing firms, including the number of European patents and the percentage share of innovative sales, as well as firm-level demand pull and technology push indicators; (iii) Econometric methods which correct for selectivity and simultaneity biases and take into account the statistical features of the available data: only a small proportion of firms engage in research activities and/or apply for patents; productivity, innovation and research are endogenously determined; research investment and capital are truncated variables, patents are count data and innovative sales are interval data.

We find that using the more widespread methods, and the more usual data and model specification, may lead to sensibly different estimates. We find in particular that simultaneity tends to interact with selectivity, and that both sources of biases must be taken into account together. However our main results are consistent with many of the stylized facts of the empirical literature. The probability of engaging in research (R&D) for a firm increases with its size (number of employees), its market share and diversification, and with the demand pull and technology push indicators. The research effort (R&D capital intensity) of a firm engaged in research increases with the same variables, except for size (its research capital being strictly proportional to size). The firm innovation output, as measured by patent numbers or innovative sales, rises with its research effort and with the demand pull and technology indicators, either directly or indirectly through their effects on research. Finally, firm productivity correlates positively with a higher innovation output, even when controlling for the skill composition of labor as well as for physical capital intensity.     

虚拟R＆D组织知识管理模式研究

研究了虚拟R＆D组织知识管理模式的特点、运行基础、构成要素等方面的问题，提出了虚拟R＆D组织知识管理模式的基本架构，并对该模式在具体实施过程中应注意的问题进行了初步探讨，为进一步研究虚拟R＆D组织的知识管理模式打下了理论基础。     

PUBLIC R&D AND INDUSTRIAL INNOVATIONS AT THE PROJECT LEVELS: AN EXPLORATION OF TAIWAN'S PUBLIC RESEARCH PROJECTS

This study investigates the role of the ITRI in Taiwan's technological catch-up. The authors examine the relationship between public R&D and industrial innovations in Taiwan using data encompassing 252 ITRI annual research projects and the survey on the characteristics of 5902 cases of transferred technologies within these projects. The authors develop a new index of innovative output to measure the monetary value of patents for research projects. They find that the influences of accumulated R&D stock, high-level R&D personnel, and the intensity of process innovations on project-level R&D productivity to be more pronounced when the monetary value of patents, instead of simple patent counts, is used as the proxy for innovation outputs. (JEL O12 , L63 )