Robotisation race in Europe: the robotisation chain approach

Abstract

Who leads the robotisation race in Europe? For the answer, this paper develops a novel analytical framework, primarily by applying the concept of the global value chain to robotisation. By doing this, we investigate in detail the entire robotisation chain, from robotics developers over robot manufacturers to companies that deploy the industrial robots. For the R&D-intensive part of the chain (robotics development), we analyse robotics patent data from PATSTAT combined with firm data from ORBIS while for the capital-intensive part (deployment of robots) the source of information is the International Federation of Robotics. Our results show that the European robotisation landscape is fragmented into three groups. The first includes economies (Sweden, Germany, Austria, Denmark and France) that have the highest densities both in robotics development and in robot deployment. Countries of the second group (Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland) possess good positions only in some specific parts of the chain, while the lagging behind region (the majority of Central and Eastern Europe) is integrated into the robotisation chain solely by robot deployment. Hence, one of the main related policy challenges is to find ways for upgrading along the robotisation chain.