How international are national (and European) science and technology policies?

Abstract

The internationalization of research and development is a fact. Numerous indicators point to a strong tendency towards intensified international activities as regards the generation and exploitation of new scientific knowledge and technologies. At the same time, the corporate strategies designed to internationalize R and D activities follow ever more differentiated rationales: there is apparently no one single reason, but a whole range of different motivations for international collaborations. The consequences for science and technology (S and T) policy should be obvious: if more and more of the activities within a given country or region are conducted by foreign-based actors, and if the home-based actors reach out further and further beyond the borders of their home country (or region), it should be self-evident that national or regional policies have reacted-one way or the other. In this chapter we concentrate on the international activities of multinational companies (MNC) and provide some evidence for the empirical trends both as regards the technological activities of MNCs and national policies to exploit these tendencies. It will be shown that-despite the obvious trends-national policy-makers have not fully understood the necessities to tailor appropriate, comprehensive approaches and that the contexts and existing activities in different countries vary considerably. Finally, we derive a couple of principal lessons to be considered by national and European policy-makers that seek to foster and take advantage of the global optimization of R and D portfolios. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.