return
Why
Catalonia cannot be considered
as
a Regional Innovation System
Scientometrics,
forthcoming
Marta
Riba Vilanova* and Loet Leydesdorff **
*
European Patent Office, P.O. Box 5818, 2280 HV Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
E-mail: mailto:mribavilanova@epo.org
**
Science and Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
Dep.
of Communication Studies, Oude Hoogstraat, 1012 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
E-mail:
loet@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
Abstract
We
present a model to assess the systemness of an innovation system. Patent and
citation data with an institutional address in Catalonia (1986-1996) were
analyzed in terms of relational linkages and the development in these
distributions over time was evaluated using methods from systems dynamics. Relational linkages are extremely
scarce. A transition at the system’s
level could be indicated around 1990 when using institutional addresses, but
not when using cognitive categories. The institutional restructuring has led to
changes in the pattern of linkages (coauthorship, etc.), but the reproduction
of the system’s knowledge base has remained differentiated. We conclude that
although a system in several other respects, Catalonia cannot (yet) be
considered as a (knowledge-based) innovation system. The existence of a mechanism for the integration could not be
indicated at the regional level.
Keywords:
Regional Innovation Systems, Systemness, Path-dependency, Catalonia
Introduction
In
1988, Baden-Wurttemberg, Catalonia, Lombardy, and Rhône-Alpes concluded the
so-called “four motors agreement.”
These four regions aspired to take the lead in organizing and innovating
the European Union at the regional level (Cooke, 1998; Lash and Urry, 1994). Does the process of European unification
enable the region to function as the relevant level for organizing innovations,
technological developments in SMEs, and wealth and job creation?
The
Maastricht Treaty (1991) assigned an advisory role to the European Committee of
Regions (Council of the European Communities, 1992). This role was further strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam in
1997, which envisaged direct consultations between this Committee and the
European Parliament. Among these regions, Catalonia holds a special place
because this region is an example of what has been called "re-emergent
nations without state", in which a significant nationalist movement has
turned cultural demands into political claims (Guibernau, 1999). Catalonia has
its own language and culture, and it enjoys considerable autonomy within the
Spanish state (Castells, 1997).
The
Generalitat, that is, the government of Catalonia, has developed its own
S&T policies during the 1980s. The
Spanish constitution (of 1978) stated explicitly that the promotion and
coordination of scientific and technological research belonged to the
competence of the central government. Yet,
the Catalan Statute of 1979 claimed that the Generalitat in Barcelona would have
exclusive competencies on research. In practice, the balance has been
precarious. The admission of Spain to the European Union in 1986 has made it
possible for Catalonia to strengthen its autonomy further with respect to
S&T policies. Science, technology,
and innovation have also been core policy objectives at the European level
since the Single European Act of 1986.
Catalonia
has thus become a region of confluence of regional, national, and European
science, technology, and innovation policies. In this study, we focus on the question of whether a regional
innovation system (RIS) has indeed emerged in Catalonia since 1986. For this purpose, we have used all patent, publication,
and citation data for the decade 1986-1995 with at least one Catalan address,
and we analysed this data in terms of co-authorship relations, linkages across
sectors (Nauwelaers and Reid 1995), and by using probabilistic entropy measures
for emerging systemness and path-dependencies (Leydesdorff & Oomes 1999). Before turning to this data, however, we
need first to specify further the theoretical expectation of a regional system
of innovation in relation to these measurement instruments.
Regional versus national innovation systems
Lundvall
(1988) based his original concept of “national systems of innovations” on
user-producer relations. Localized
user-producer relations entail interaction mechanisms different from abstract
market forces, such as mutual confidence rooted in geographical and cultural
proximity. The concept of Regional
Innovation Systems (RIS) builds upon several turns in economic geography and economic theory (Cooke et al., 1997; Cooke et al., 1998). ‘New
regional science’ has stressed “the importance of geographical proximity or agglomeration characteristics,
for facilitating innovative tacit-knowledge exchange and other externalities;
and [...] an institutional and organizational learning propensity to regional economic performance” (Ibid. at p. 1563). Evolutionary economic theory has pointed to the major role played
by innovation as a source of economic growth (e.g., Nelson & Winter, 1982).
In
our opinion, an innovation system should not be considered as a physically
existing system, but as the specific dynamics of change in systems of production and distribution. While the latter
can be defined in institutional terms, innovation systems can be considered as
complex social dynamics and as such cannot be apprehended in their entirety
from a single perspective. Innovation systems have been studied more often as a
collection of institutions and policies than as the socio-economic dynamics of
generation and appropriation of technology (Nelson, 1993; Borras Alomar, 1995).
In particular, the systemness of such dynamics has not been empirically
addressed. As Cooke points out:
In the literature on
innovation the term "system" is not analyzed in great detail. …
Clearly, an innovation system is a social system, and innovations are the
result of social interaction between economic actors. (1998, at p.11)
In
this study, we approach the Catalan innovation system using data collected from
patent publications and scientific articles. Indicators of technological
activity can be constructed from patent data (Pavitt, 1985; Grupp &
Schmoch, 1999). Scientific activity can be traced by using scientific
publications (Carpenter & Narin, 1981; Leydesdorff, 1995). Both patent and
science publications are the result of knowledge-intensive activities and
register mainly knowledge-based innovation. Organizational innovations, innovation
in the services sector, or in marketing or in labour relations, to name a few
examples, remain out of focus. On the other hand, not all knowledge produced by
scientists and engineers is codified in science communications or patents. In
the case of patents specifically, some skills may prove difficult to acquire,
and organizational and financial thresholds may be difficult for small
organizations and universities to cross (Webster & Packer, 1996).
The
patent and science journal data inform us on the changes in the knowledge base
underlying the systems of production and distribution. Of the five types of
innovation in production described by Schumpeter (1934, at pp. 100-101),
namely, the production of a new good or a new quality of a known good, the conception
of a new production process, opening a new market, accessing new sources of raw
or basic materials, or the re-organization of a market structure, the first
four draw heavily on the production of knowledge. The industrial revolution relied heavily on the systematization
of change by creating, for instance, research laboratories in industry,
scientific management, and the protection of inventions with modern patent
(law) systems. However, in the last decade terms such as ‘information age’ and
‘knowledge economy’ are being used increasingly by academics and practitioners
alike in the field of political economy. These concepts try to capture the
changes in society that have given knowledge a heavier weight in the creation
and redistribution of economic growth, employment, and welfare (DTI, 1998;
OCDE, 1999; Beck, 1999; Lash & Urry, 1994).
In
another context, we have developed the model of a Triple Helix of
University-Industry-Government relations (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1998;
Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz, 1998).
Crucial to the argument about “innovation systems” is the development of
an overlay of expectations that drive the processes of institutional change.
Expectations can be interfaced and communicated across the boundaries of
different function systems (Luhmann, 1984).
For example, the expectation of market profit can be used to legitimate
an investment decision in the knowledge infrastructure.
In
the case of a reinforcement of expectations across different sectors, the
(partial) consensus may drive the institutional reorganization of underlying
structures. From this perspective, the institutional layer serves as a
retention mechanism, among other things, for the creation of wealth and
jobs. The institutional (e.g.,
sectoral) arrangements, in turn, guide the further formulation of expectations
and heuristics as a feedback.
Historically,
national systems of production and distribution have thus functioned as
competing units in organizing systems of innovation. The operational mechanisms, however, are price expectations (that
is, markets) and cultural expectations. At the level of expectations one is
able to translate and to trade-off expected costs and benefits. The exchange of
expectations can be organized within subsystems
of communication recursively or across
(sub-)systems using different codes interactively.
Within
each subsystem, the recursive axis is expected to prevail, while across systems
the interactive terms (“weak ties”) generate another non-linear dynamics (Blauwhof,
1995). In principle, the relative size of the recursivity and the interactivity
of the communications determine the degree of radicality of innovations.
Recursive improvements, for example, can be expected to be integrated within
existing practices. Radical innovations will involve cross-boundary spanning
mechanisms.
An
innovation system may be decomposable in terms of relatively independent
subsystems (mainly recursive operation of functions, little interaction) or it
may develop more as a single (integrated) organization. In a later section, we will test our data
for distinguishing between these two extremes.
In general, the innovative potential of a system can be defined in terms
of the distribution of communicative competences that it contains for
translating and thereby adjusting the expectations within and among different
domains. This exchange of expectations has additionally to be matched with
institutional arrangements that have been shaped historically.
The
interfacing of two layers –that is, of functional communications and
institutional arrangements– can be mediated by culturally different
(e.g., national) systems of innovation.
The cultural and historical differences thus affect the role of academia
and the configuration of trans-sectoral (“Mode 2”) research in national,
supranational (e.g., Scandinavian) or regional systems of innovation (Hirasawa et al., 1998; cf. Shinn, 1998). As noted, systems of innovation can then be
considered as competing at the next-order (that is, global) level in terms of
the adaptability of their knowledge infrastructures.
How
are communicative competences distributed in each of these local solutions?
While the so-called “productivity growth puzzle” is continuously generated by
uneven technological developments across sectors (Nelson & Winter, 1975;
Nelson & Winter, 1982; Nelson, 1994), the infrastructure conditions the
processes of innovation which are possible within and among the sectors. In particular, the distribution of relevant
actors contains an heuristic potential which can be made reflexive by a
strategic analysis of specific strengths and weaknesses (Pavitt, 1984; Patel
& Pavitt, 1994).
Catalonia, Spain, and Europe
The
historical configuration of post-Franco Spain made it necessary to allow for
regional autonomy. While the discussion in the Basque country has primarily
focused on the issue of independence, the strength of the Catalan region has
traditionally been its cultural identity within
the Spanish state, with a strong claim for political and economic
autonomy. As a relatively well
developed industrial region, whose industrialisation started in the nineteenth
century, Catalonia was able to express its cultural identity notably in terms
of industrial leadership, orientation towards Europe, and innovation (see
Guibernau 1999, at p. 41). Thereby, it
could position itself conveniently between the central government in Madrid and
the European Union, which since 1986 focused increasingly on research,
technology, and development (RTD) as instruments for further integration across
national borders.
Within
the region, this integration cannot be fully achieved given the central
position of the national governments in the European unification process, the
relative weak position of the Catalan language in Europe, and the wish to open
up the economy given the remnants of the corporatist past. In this configuration, there is only a
limited room for further developing a regional identity. Thus, contrary to the
strong (and symbolic) integration in the case of national systems, the regional
system can be expected to remain incomplete and subsymbolic. Analytically, it has the status of a
hypothesis, however seriously the actors involved may be interested in pursuing
its realization.
The
subsymbolic character of this identity can further be strengthened in terms of
networks of relations. Have specific
densities of relations been maintained at this level of integration? Among other things, an orientation towards
Europe (where Spanish and Catalan are both secondary to English and French) may
have been helpful in strengthening the network character of this cultural
identity vis-à-vis Spain. However, in
the case of conflict, the national identities can be expected to prevail.
For
example, when the Spanish government passed its (first) Science Bill in 1986,
it reserved a place for the Autonomous Communities only in an advisory body of
the coordinating interministerial commission CICYT. Neither economic resources nor institutions were transferred from
the Spanish to the regional administrations.
Only the centre of agricultural research (Institut de Recerca i
Tecnologia Agraries, IRTA) in Catalonia was left to the region. All other
centres of research remained under the control of the Spanish national government. In 1987, the Catalan government (and
parliament) filed a case of “unconstitutionality” against this law. The Constitutional Court, however, ruled in
favour of the Spanish government in 1992.
In
the meantime, the Catalan government had further developed its own S&T
policies (CIRIT, 1997). During the period 1986-1991 both the Catalan and
Spanish economies flourished. As a developed industrial region, Catalonia had
been hit severely by downward cycles of the economy. The period of 1982-1986 was
a period of reform policies by social-democratic governments in Madrid that
intensified the democratic reforms of the post-Franco period. The economy gained momentum only after 1986.
As noted, Spain also joined the European Union in this year. During these
years, foreign capital invested heavily in Catalonia, while Catalan industries
increased their exports to other EU countries. Nevertheless, the rest of Spain
remained its major economic exchange partner. The expansive cycle ended in 1992
and a crisis started which lasted until 1996 (Gasoliba, 1996).
Even
during expansive cycles, Catalan industry has been characterized by few medium
and big enterprises in the field of advanced technology, low R & D
expenditures, and a shortage of staff working in knowledge-intensive areas
(Petitbo & Bosch, 1990; Barcelo, 1993). The Catalan economy is structurally
dominated by SMEs. Since SMEs are believed to create new jobs in Europe,
Catalonia strongly qualified for European support. In reality, the share of Catalonia in the II and III Framework
Programs, which ran respectively in the years 1988-1991 and 1990-1994, was of
15 and 18 percent of the Spanish total. Thus, it remained approximately
proportional to the demographic and GNP weight of Catalonia within Spain. In contrast,
the region of Madrid (with a share of above 50 percent) and the Basque country
(with a share of almost 10 percent) had a much higher relative return than
Catalonia in terms of EU funding of science, technology and industrial
competitiveness (Vence 1998). Nevertheless, EU funds outweighed the Spanish and
Catalan funds for R&D activities, as can be seen in Table 1 (IEC, 1997).
The levels of investment in R&D activities (e.g., GERD/GDP) and levels of
staff employed in the knowledge production sector are lower than the averages
of the EU countries and similar to the Spanish averages. Historically, the
Catalan industry has relied on importing technology rather than invested in
endogenous technological development (Bacaria & Borras Alomar, 1998).
In his categorization of Regional Innovation
Systems, Cooke (1998, at p. 22) classified Catalonia as an interactive and
grassroots innovation system. The
characteristics of grassroots governance are, according to this author, diffuse
funding, near-market research, initiation at a local level, and little
supra-local coordination. The features
of an interactive RIS are a balance between large and small firms, indigenous
capital or FDI, mixed public and private research laboratories, and a high
degree of associationalism. These characterizations accord with our assumption
about the distributed nature of the (network) data in the case of the Catalan
innovation system (cf. de la Mothe & Paquet, 1998).
Is the historically emerging network increasingly developing
into a coordinated system? We shall
test whether the distributions have changed, and if so, in which respects. How strong is the regional organization and
what role can it play vis-à-vis the national one? What difference can the European dimension make for changing
these relationships?
Methodology
Data
We used
bibliometric information for studying the Catalan innovation system. To this end, we searched the on-line patent
databases (EUREG, EPODOC) of the European Patent Office (EPO) for patents with
at least one address in the Catalan region (using the corresponding postal
codes), and the CD-ROM version of the Science
Citation Index using the same keys. All searches were done in January 1998.
1318
European patent applications with a Catalan address were retrieved for the
period 1986-1995, and 15,968
scientific articles for the period 1986-1996.
Note that we used only scientific articles as a document type in the
latter set. This was done partly for pragmatic reasons (that is, limiting the
size of the dataset), but also because scientific articles can be considered as
the prime indicator of developments at the research front while they are at the
same time highly codified. Patents are
systematically codified during the certification process, both in terms of
their contents and in terms of references to previous patents and scientific
journal literature. A summary of the
data can be found in Tables 2 and 3.
Other
statistical information (for example, about funding, Spanish patent data, and
European comparisons) was used in the background of the study and also for
purposes of normalization.
Methods
The
data was organized in relational databases. This enables us to study both the
multivariate complexity in each year and to pursue time-series analysis over
the years. While multivariate analysis of, for example, citation relations
provides us with network information for each of the years (or for the total
set), comparisons of results for different years enables us to proceed only
towards so-called comparative static analysis.
However, trend lines for the various indicators cannot systematically
inform us about (multivariate) interaction effects.
Entropy
statistics enables us to relate the multi-variate and longitudinal analyses
systematically: the expected information content of the message that a
distribution has occurred can be considered as an update of the expectation
contained in a previous distribution (Leydesdorff, 1991). The measures can be
elaborated into tests for the emergence of systemness in the distributions and
for irreversible (“path-dependent”) transitions. These complex dynamics cannot
always be observed by visual inspection of a set of trend lines (Leydesdorff,
1995).
As
a measure of systemness, we used the expectation that a system is able to
counteract a disturbance by maintaining the prevailing uncertainty in the
distribution. If the distribution is
not changed, this is also called the Markov property. The assumption of the Markov property can be tested against the
assumption that the units (or subsystems) carrying the links of the network
develop along their own historical trendlines.
The two expectations will be tested against each other using the next
year’s data as a yardstick. The respective deviations from the expectations can
be expressed in bits of information after proper normalization. (See
Leydesdorff & Oomes (1999, pp. 79 ff.) for the derivation of the
algorithm.)
Another
measure that we will use is that of a path-dependent transition. While the test for systemness focuses on the
relative systemness in contrast to a (loose) aggregate of elements, this test
evaluates the development of systemness in the datasets. Is the system active in reorganizing the data
according to a logic of its own? (Frenken & Leydesdorff, 2000). We use
'path dependency' here as a descriptive category for the historical event (cf.
Foray, 1998) while in the literature 'path-dependency' has sometimes been
defined mathematically in relation to the development of a non-ergodic system
(e.g. Arthur, 1989).
As
noted, the current state of a system provides us with a best prediction of its
next state (given our above definition of a system). In the case of an active system,
one expects the historical trajectories of the elements and subsystems to be
“overwritten” by the system’s (re‑)organization in the present. Thus, previous states are no longer expected
to matter for the prediction of the system’s next state. The current state of an operating system boosts
the signal from a previous state for the future. Thus, an active system is (by
definition) path-dependent upon its current state.
Using
the triangle in Figure 1, one can write the following inequality:
I(C:B)
+ I(B:A) < I(C:A)
From
this perspective, the informational distance along the two upper sides of the
triangle is smaller than the informational distance between state (t+1) (at C)
and state (t-1) (at A). In this case,
the signal is expected to travel first through the in-between state (B) and,
rather like an auxiliary transmitter, the previous state is then boosted by the
revision of the prediction given this current state of the system.
Note
that this test is contrary to the notion of geometrical (that is, Euclidean)
distances. (The sum of the two sides of a triangle is always larger than the
hypotenuse.) Information theory
provides us with a calculus which enables us to compute algorithmically (as in
a movie) what cannot be evaluated from comparing multidimensional (but static)
geometries. In addition to the question
of how the units add up to a distribution, one is now able to ask questions
about what the interactions may mean for the further development of the system. We will apply these measures to the
different distributions that we will, however, first analyze descriptively.
Descriptive
statistics
Percentage
share
In the period under study, Catalonia has
spectacularly increased its share of international publications and patent
applications at the European level. While
Spain has almost doubled its relative share of publications in the period
1986-1996 (from 1.14 to 2.23 percentage points of world share of publications),
Catalonia has more than tripled its contribution (from 0.14 to 0.47 percentage
points) during this same period. The proportion of Catalan articles in the
total of Spanish articles has increased in the decade under study from 12 to 21
percent. (Figure 2; cf. Leydesdorff, 2000).
The
trends in patent applications are exhibited in Figure 3. In this case, both Spain and Catalonia as
one of its regions exhibit spectacular growth rates. While the total number of patent filings per year flattened in
Europe during the first half of the 1990s, Spain and Catalonia were still
growing in terms of absolute numbers and therefore in terms of percentage
shares during this period. The Catalan
contribution to the Spanish portfolio has remained of the order of 60%, but one
is able to observe a tendency of relative
decline in the first half of the1990s.
The decomposition of the Catalan sets
The
15,968 articles of the period 1986-1996 containing at least one Catalan address
appeared in 2122 different journals.
Since the CD-ROM version of the Science
Citation Index has a coverage of approximately 3600 journals, this means
that the relatively small contribution of articles with a Catalan address
appears in this journal literature in a very dispersed distribution. 1564 of
this set of journals (that is, 43.4% of 3600 journals) contained more than a
single publication with a Catalan address.
The 1318 patents with at least one Catalan address
during the period 1986-1995 are grouped in 31 categories, as defined by the
European Patent Office in its annual reports. These 31 groups are based on the
technical units of the International Patent Classification (IPC). We have
further grouped these 31 groups in 10 groups –using the specific expertise in
this field of one of the authors– in order to enable us to summarize and
compare the information relating to technical fields in which Catalan
applicants operate (Table 4). However,
we performed all tests on both tables.
The distribution of Catalan patents across the
technological landscape is uneven. The main sectors of activity have been
organic chemistry, human necessities, and transport technologies. The
percentage shares of these three fields in the Catalan portfolio are above
those of the corresponding shares for the world average. Organic, notably
pharmaceutical, chemistry is heavily over-represented (Table 5).
The percentage share of patents in textile technology
has continuously declined during the period under study, while the sectors of
computing, electronics, telecommunications, instrumentation, and electrical
engineering have remained below both the Spanish and world relative percentages
in the respective portfolios. However, the biochemistry share (including
biotechnology) is approximately the same as the world average.
The technological profile of Catalonia is
concentrated in fewer fields than the Spanish profile or the world average.
Furthermore, the changes from year to year are more pronounced,
like the relative decline of patent applications in the textile field and the
increasing share of applications in the transport technology field for the
years under study. These results suggest a specific industrial development.
The institutional carriers
The
corporate addresses of the scientific articles indicate 62.1 % university
research groups, 21.5% public research institutes, 12.7% hospitals, and only
3.6% industrial companies.
Table 5 provides an overview of how the data have been organised into
institutional categories. During the period under investigation, the share of
the non-university research institutes has increased, but the share of contributions
with a hospital address has remained approximately stable.
University
researchers take a central position in the pattern of co-authorship relations.
Figure 4 exhibits these patterns for 1986 and 1996, respectively. In our opinion, this data suggests that –as
in other OECD countries (Godin & Gingras, 2000 )– the academic research
system has strengthened its position as the main carrier of the contribution to
the international publication system of scientific communications.
Patents
do not always carry an institutional address: individual inventors can apply
personally for a patent. Catalan patents are filed almost exclusively by
individual inventors and firms (approximately 30% and 70%, respectively). Although
individual inventors cannot be dismissed as producers of gadgetry, they usually
face great difficulties to raise funds to develop and market their inventions
(Macdonald, 1986). The number of
patents filed by universities has been zero during the period 1986-1989, and in
the first half of the 1990s this number has grown to approximately three per
year. The number of patents filed by
research institutes in the public sector exhibits a similar pattern.
We
found only a single patent co-application with a university address in 1995.
This was a patent with the CSIC, the national public research institute in
Madrid. The public research sector
itself had seven cross-sectoral applications during this ten-year period, of
which five were with industrial partners. For example, CSIC had one patent application
with Prodesfarma, a pharmaceutical company in Barcelona, in 1992.
This patent concerns novel heterocyclic compounds, structurally related to
ptheridines, with potential therapeutic properties, such as diuretics,
bronchodilatators, and platelet antiaggregants. The search report established
by the EPO contained three citations to articles published by one of the
inventors, indicating a strong science base for this application.
Co-applications
between individual inventors and industry have been more common. These
co-applications may also indicate inventors who work in their (self-owned)
SMEs.
The Science-relatedness of Catalan patents
Narin
and Olivastro (1988, 1992) have developed an index of science-related patents
by counting the number of international journals cited in the patent
applications as a percentage of total citations within patents. If this percentage is high, the patents draw
heavily upon scientific literature and can therefore be considered as
relatively science-based (Narin et al.,
1997). Grupp (1996) developed these
measures further for European patents.
We
analyzed patent applications with at
least one Catalan address for the occurrence of non-patent literature citations
(after correction for references to search reports of other patents). The
numbers are provided in Table 6. While
66% of the patent applications contain this type of references across the file,
we found 50% as the value for patent applications with a Spanish address and
only 40% for those with at least one Catalonian address. This suggests that the Catalan industry
might be less science-based than the Spanish average.
Inspection
of the patents taught us that the patents that cite scientific literature are
exclusively found in the pharmaceutical and in the clinical domains. The
otherwise sparse co-authorship relations and co-applications are also found
exclusively in these domains (that is, including biotechnology). Hospitals have a large share of
co-authorships in the collected SCI articles and companies authoring scientific
articles are almost exclusively pharmaceutical ones. Thus, the medical sector seems to be integrated differently from
the other areas of RTD. The organization of public health provides a framework
for a specific kind of integration (Blume, 1992).
Outside
these domains we could not find substantive collaboration or indicators of
mutual influencing through citations (see Tables 6, 7). Most of the companies
with more than a single patent during this decade belong to either the
chemical-pharmaceutical sector (science-based) or mechanical engineering
(non-science-based). Patents in other science-based sectors like laser
technology, microelectronics, optics, surface technology and inorganic
chemistry are virtually non-existent in the Catalan set.
Dynamic analyses
Test for systemness
We
tested the various distributions of patent applications and scientific
publications for systemness, both in terms of the substantive categories (journal
titles, patent classifications, etc.) and in terms of institutional
addresses. (The attribution of papers
was based on “integer counting”, that is, each unit obtains a full count in
case of a co-authorship relation.)
All
these various distributions are found to be systemic using the tests described
above. However, this systemic character
is generated by the absence of change. The distributions are reproduced from
year to year with minor changes. The
assumption of the Markov property is always better than the prediction based on
the individual time series of the respective subsystems, that is, the various
scientific specialties and (technological) patent classes.
Note
that this does not mean that the level of Catalonia is relevant for the
integration. On the contrary, the descriptive results above suggest that both
the academic system and the industrial system are integrated at other levels
and that these different subsystems hardly disturb one another at the level of
Catalonia. The Catalan organization
serves as a carrier of an otherwise differentiated system.
Tests
for path-dependencies
Since the system has grown rapidly during
the period under study, one can wonder whether the nature of the systemic
distributions has changed. As noted,
the test for path-dependency provides us with a measure of the systemic
integration at this level of the dataset.
If a system operates at the regional level, it can be expected to
produce a path-dependency.
We
always found path-dependencies in the
time series of institutional distributions of addresses of authors and
applicants. However, path-dependency
was (almost) never found in the distributions of patent classifications and
journals. Most of the institutional path dependencies occurred around
1990/1991. Thus, the measure of path-dependency allows us to distinguish
between the two types of systems: the institutional system is active, while the
cognitive ones are not actively operating at this level of integration. (See
Table 8 for a summary of these results.)
This
difference in path-dependency between the institutional and the cognitive
categories can be considered as an indicator that the cognitive dimension of
the system is less localised at the regional level than the institutional
dimension. The institutional carriers of the system are anchored geographically
and in the region, but the knowledge, once it is produced, can be published in
peer-reviewed journals, or a patent application can be filed. International
journals and patent classifications operate in global markets. Our results
indicate that the institutional structures in Catalonia (as in other advanced
regions) enable authors and inventors to participate in this global level of
communication without restrictions stemming from their institutional locations.
Note
that we do not deny the local dimension in the production of knowledge, but we
draw attention to the possibility that scientific and technological knowledge
is codified at another level. Knowledge production and control can be
differentiated (Whitley 1984).
Knowledge control is achieved through codification (Luhmann, 1990; Cowan
& Foray, 1997). The cognitive
dimension of scientific and technological communication is subject to a process
of codification in journal articles and patent applications, respectively.
Among other things, codification enables users to accelerate the transfer of
the knowledge-based contents.
In
summary, our results indicate that the Catalan system went through a
rearrangement in institutional terms around the turn of the decade. New patterns of collaboration have emerged
and thereafter co-applications of patents and co-authorship relations in
journal articles have become more common (that is, less rare) than before.
Thus, the system has been put into another gear, but this interaction has
remained marginal in relation to the overwhelming stability of the core
(sub-)systems. These latter are not
firmly integrated with each other at the regional level. Differentiation has
prevailed indicating integration at other levels (cf. Cimoli, forthcoming).
Conclusion
It
is important to distinguish between the political discourse in the arena of
science, technology, and innovation policies, and the practices to which these
discussions refer. We do not wish to disclaim the legitimacy of a regional
innovation policy, but we have investigated how the Catalan innovation system
has been affected by the intense discourses about its restructuring during the
latter half of the 1980s and the early 1990s.
Undoubtedly,
a new self-understanding of the role of regions has emerged in Europe (and
elsewhere), and this perspective can be related to the emergence of the
knowledge-based economies. The role of the
nation-state as a relevant level of integration for a system of innovations has
come under pressure from the tendencies toward globalization and European
unification. Regional governance
aspirations as in the case of Catalonia have legitimated efforts to shape an
alternative system of innovations.
Our results indicate that the RIS of Catalonia has
gone through a relatively short period of institutional change. This can be considered as a consequence of
the opening up of the Spanish economy, its specific position in relation to
France given European economic integration across borders, and the Catalan
aspirations. However, the innovative
activities have otherwise remained unchanged in character: they have remained
differentiated at the Catalan level, and therefore integration is supposedly
taking place at other (national and/or international) levels. One can, for example, imagine that the
regional universities are important as a window for the local industry on
scientific developments at the international level. In this case, one would not expect regional patents to cite
regional articles.
The
geographic distribution of science and technology in Europe is much more
concentrated than population or economic activity in general, and amplifies the
differences between centres and peripheries. However, the pace of concentration
seems to be slowing down for science activities. Science and technology exhibit
a strong pattern of co-concentration. Barcelona is classified as one of the 40
EU poles of science and technology, in the group of areas whose ranks are
between 22 and 40 and contribute between 0,7 and 1,0 percent to the total EU
value of science and technology (Zitt et
al., 1999). Our results suggest that the geographical coincidence of
science and technology activities is not reflected in an integrated regional
system dynamics. On the other hand, the position of Barcelona in Spain, and to
a certain extent in Europe, is neither that of a centre nor that of a
periphery. Depending in the network dynamics of Spanish and European S&T
activities, the intermediate position of Catalonia could hamper the development
and/or integration of science and technology activities at the regional level.
Our
research question was not whether Catalonia is a regional system, but whether
it could be considered as a regional innovation
system. The answer to this question
must be negative. In our opinion, one
must either modify the concept of
“regional innovation system” or conclude that this region is not a
relevant level of the system of innovations.
With
hindsight, one can argue that the model of “regional innovation systems” was
shaped too much by analogy with the earlier model of national systems of
innovation (Lundvall 1988; Nelson 1993). In pursuit of this analogy, scholars
have tried to overcome the lack of hierarchical authority of national
governments by introducing new concepts and models like regional innovation
organizers (Gebhardt, 1997). Can
universities, for example, sometimes take the role of a local government in a
region when regional authorities fail to provide the necessary guidance (da
Rosa Pires & de Castro, 1997)?
It
makes a difference in the local culture when knowledge-interests are
coordinated, and when there is an organized exchange of expectations in terms
of knowledge –in
addition to the mechanisms of exchange and coordination provided by the local
economy–
but the envisaged development at the regional level underestimates, in our
opinion, the complexities of global transitions towards a knowledge-based
economy. When the hierarchical model of
state control is relativized, other models of integration have to be
appreciated reflexively.
We
have argued that the Catalan innovation systems can be expected to remain
subsymbolic in character. Such regional innovation systems cannot be expected
to replace the national innovation system, but they add a supplementary mode.
Among other things, these innovation systems can be expected to remain
juxtaposed to other networks of integration because of their network
character.
For
example, not only regions, but also sectors, disciplines, problem fields, state
apparatuses, etc., can be considered as relevant frames of reference for
communication and interaction. One can expect the complex system to
counterbalance control at the level of subsystems (de la Mothe & Paquet,
1996). In such cases, policies at one of the network levels are expected to be
only moderately successful. Policies are also formulated reflexively, for
instance, through the articulation of concepts such as complementarity and
subsidiarity. As it is, policy initiatives emphasize the need for
inter-relationship between the public and private sectors (CIRIT, 1997). Yet,
the self-organization of the complex dynamics also promotes the further differentiation
of communication because the system can then handle more complexity in its
relevant environments.
Our
results indicate that Catalonia as a region experienced a period of
reorganization in the institutional basis of its innovation system during the
early 1990s. But perhaps the momentum
has faded away since then. We would
guess that the ICT revolution integrates industrial regions in a different
manner than was the case before the emergence of the Internet. Knowledge-based communication systems have
nowadays become complex and thereby non-trivial as mechanisms for
integration. From the perspective of
the network, national and regional identities can be considered as functional attributes (e.g., “made in Spain”
or “www.xxxx.es”) rather than as essential characteristics.
*
An earlier version of the paper was
presented at the NECTS-99 Conference about Regional Innovation Systems in
Europe (San Sebastian, Spain, 30 Sep.- 2 Oct. 1999). The authors acknowledge partial funding by the program for Targeted
Social-Economic Research of the European Commission, project NR. SOE1-DT97-1060
(“The Self-Organization of the European Information Society”). We thank the
European Patent Organization (EPO) for allowing one of the authors to collect the patent data.
return
References
Arthur,
W. B. (1989) Competing Technologies, Increasing returns, and Lock-In by
Historical Events Economic Journal
99, 116-31
Bacaria, J., S. Borras Alomar (1998) The Catalan innovation
system. Governing rapid changes, in: H. -J.
Braczyk, P. Cooke, and M.
Heidenreich (Editors). Regional Innovation Systems (University College London
Press, London, Bristol PA) pp. 72-97.
Barcelo i Roca, M. (1993) Innovacio
tecnologica i industria a Catalunya. (La Llar de Llibre, Barcelona).
Blauwhof, G. (1995) The non-linear
dynamics of technological developments: an exploration of telecommunications
technology, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis,
University of Amsterdam.
Blume, Stuart S. (1992) Insight and Industry: The
Dynamics of Technological Change in Medicine (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).
Borras Alomar, S. (1995) Governing Systems of
Innovation: Regions and Technology in Europe. The case study of Catalonia in
the 1980s and 1990s. Ph.D. Thesis, mimeo (Instituto Universitario Europeo,
Florence).
Beck, U. ( 1999) Schöne neue Arbeitswelt
(Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, New York).
Carpenter, M., F. Narin (1981) The adequacy of the Science Citation Index (SCI)
as an Indicator of International Scientific Activity, Journal of the American
Society of Information Science 32, 430-439.
Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity
(Blackwell, London).
Cimoli, M. (Editor), forthcoming, Developing Innovation
System: Mexico in the Global Context. (Cassell Academic, London).
Commissio Interdepartamental de Recerca i Innovacio Tecnologica (1997) II
Pla de Recerca de Catalunya 1997/2000 (Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona).
Council of the European Communities, and Commission of
the European Communities (1992) Treaty on European Union (Office for Offical
Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg).
Cooke, P. (1998) Introduction. The origins of the
concept, in: Regional Innovation Systems, H.-J. Braczyk, P. Cooke, and M.
Heidenreich (Editors) (University College London Press, London, Bristol PA) pp.
2-25.
Cooke, P., M. G. Uranga, and G. Etxebarria (1997)
Regional innovation systems: Institutional and organisational dimensions,
Research Policy 26, 475-491.
Cooke, P., M. G. Uranga, and G. Etxebarria
(1998) Regional systems of innovation: an evolutionary perspective, Environment
and Planning A 30, 1563-1584.
Cowan, R., D.Foray (1997) The Economics of Codification
and the Diffusion of Knowledge, (MERIT, Maastricht).
Department
for Trade and Industry (1998) Our Competitive Future: Building the
Knowledge-Driven Economy: Analytical Background (DTI, London). http://www.dti.gov.uk/comp/competitive/an_reprt.htm
Etzkowitz, H., and L. Leydesdorff (1998)
The Endless Transition: A “Triple Helix” of
University-Industry-Government Relations,
Introduction to a Theme Issue, Minerva
36, 203-8.
Etzkowitz, H., and L. Leydesdorff (2000) The Dynamics of Innovation: From
National Systems and “Mode 2” to a Triple Helix of
University-Industry-Government Relations, Research Policy 29, 109-123.
Frenken,
K., and L. Leydesdorff (2000) Scaling Trajectories in Civil Aircraft
(1913-1997), Research Policy 29,
331-348.
Foray,
D. (1998) Errors and Mistakes in Technological Systems: From Potential Regret
to Path Dependent Inefficiency, in: Jacques Lesourne and Andre Orlean (Eds.)
Advance in Self-Organisation and Evolutionary Economics (Economica, London) pp.
217-239
Gasoliba Böhm, C. A.
(1996) 10 anys d’integracio europea (Vicens Vives, Barcelona).
Gebhardt, C. (1997) Die
Regionalisierung von Innovationsprozessen in der Informationstechnologie.
Staatliche Forschungsfoerderung im Zeitalter der Globalisierung (Deutscher
Universitaets Verlag, Wiesbaden).
Godin,
B., Y. Gingras, (2000) The Place of
Universities in the System of Knowledge Production, Research Policy 29,
273-278.
Grupp,
H. (1996) Spillover effects and the science base of innovations reconsidered:
an empirical approach, Journal of Evolutionary Economics 6, 175-197.
Grupp,
H., U. Schmoch (1999) Patent statistics in the age of globalisation: new legal
procedures, new analytical methods, new economic interpretation, Research
Policy 28, 377-396.
Guibernau,
M. (1999) Nations without States. Political Communities in a Global Age (Polity
Press, Cambridge).
Hirasawa, R.,
T. Ijichi, H.Tomizawa, and Y. Fujigaki (1998)
A Comparative Survey on Science and Technology Policy System and on
Policy Formulation Processes. Report
for the STA: Special co-ordinating program 1998.
Institut d’Estudis Catalans (1997) Reports de la recerca a Catalunya.
Tecnologies de la informacio i de les comunicacions (IEC, Barcelona).
Katz, J. S. (1999)
The self-similar science system, Research Policy 28, 501-517.
Lash, S., J. Urry (1994) Economies of Signs and Space
(Sage, London).
Leydesdorff,
L. (1991) The Static and Dynamic Analysis of Network Data Using Information
Theory, Social Networks 13, 301-345.
Leydesdorff, L. (1995)
The Challenge of Scientometrics: the development, measurement, and
self-organization of scientific communications (DSWO Press, Leiden University,
Leiden).
Leydesdorff,
L. (2000) Is the EU Becoming a Single Publication System? Scientometrics (47)
2, 265-280.
Leydesdorff,
L., and H. Etzkowitz (1998) The Triple Helix as a model for innovation studies,
Science and Public Policy 25(3), 195-203.
Leydesdorff,
L., and N. Oomes (1999) Is the European Monetary System Converging to
Integration? Social Science Information 38(1), 57-86.
Luhmann, N. (1984) Soziale
Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M.) [1995, Social Systems
(Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)].
Luhmann,
N. (1990) Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M.).
Lundvall, B.-Å. (1988) Innovation as an
interactive process: from user-producer interaction to the national system of
innovation, in: G. Dosi, C. Freeman, R.R. Nelson, G. Silverberg and L. Soete
(Editors), Technical Change and Economic Theory (Pinter, London), pp. 349-369.
Macdonald, S. (1986) The distinctive research of the
individual inventor, Research Policy 15, 199-210.
Mothe, J. de la, and G. Paquet (Editors) (1996)
Evolutionary Economics and the New International Political Economy (Cassell
Academic, London).
Mothe, J. de la,
and G. Paquet (1998) Local and regional systems of innovation (Kluwer, Boston).
Narin, F., and D. Olivastro (1988) Technology Indicators
Based on Patents and Patent Citations, in: A.F.J. van Raan (Editor), Handbook
of Quantitative Studies of Science and Technology (Elsevier, Amsterdam), pp.
465-507.
Narin, F., and D. Olivastro (1992) Status
report: linkages between technology and science, Research Policy 14, 237-249.
Narin, F., K. S. Hamilton, D. Olivastro
(1997) The Increasing Linkage Between U.S. Technology and Public Science,
Research Policy 26, 317-320.
Nauwelaers C., and A. Reid (1995)
Methodologies for the evaluation of regional innovation potential,
Scientometrics 34, 497-511.
Nelson, R. R. (Editor)
(1993) National Innovation Systems: A comparative study (Oxford University
Press, Oxford and New York).
Nelson, R.R. (1994)
Economic Growth via the Coevolution of Technology and Institutions, in: L. Leydesdorff
and P.Van den Besselaar (Editors), Evolutionary Economics and Chaos Theory: New
Directions in Technology Studies (Pinter, London and New York), pp. 21-32.
Nelson,
R.R., Winter, S.G. (1975) Growth Theory from an Evolutionary Perspective: The
Differential Productivity Growth Puzzle, American Economic Review 65, 338.
Nelson,
R.R., Winter, S.G. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA).
Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (1999) OECD Science, Technology and Industry
Scoreboard 1999. Benchmarking Knowledge-based Economies (OECD, Paris).
Patel, P., and K. Pavitt (1994) The
nature and economic importance of national innovation systems. STI Science
Technology Industry Review 14, 9-32.
Pavitt,
K. (1984) Sectoral patterns of technical change: towards a theory and a
taxonomy, Research Policy 13, 343-73.
Pavitt,
K. (1985) Patent Statistics as Indicators of Innovative Activities:
Possibilities and Problems, Scientometrics 7, 77-99.
Petitbo, A., and J. Bosch
(1990) Estructura Industrial, in: M. Parallada (Editor), Estructura economica
de Cataluna, (Espasa-Calpe, Madrid), pp. 225-250.
Rosa
Pires, A. da, and E. Anselmo de Castro (1997) Can a Strategic Project for a
University be Strategic to Regional Development? Science and Public Policy 24,
15-20.
Schumpeter, J.A. (1934) Theorie der wirtschaftlichen
Entwicklung. Eine Untersuchung über Unternehmergewinn, Kapital, Kredit, Zins
und den Konjunkturzyklus (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin).
Theil, H. (1972) Statistical Decomposition
Analysis (North-Holland, Amsterdam)
Vence, X. (1998) La politica tecnologica comunitaria
y la cohesion regional. Los retos de los sistemas de innovacion perifericos
(Civitas, Madrid)
Webster, A., K. Packer (1996) Intellectual
property and the wider innovation system in: A. Webster and K. Packer
(Editors), Innovation and the Intellectual Property System (Kluwer, London),
pp. 1-19.
Whitley,
R. R. (1984) The Intellectual and Social Organization of the Sciences.
(Clarendon Press, Oxford).
Zitt, M., R. Barre, A. Sigogneau, and F. Laville
(1999) Territorial concentration and evolution of science and technology
activities in the European Union: a descriptive analysis, Research Policy 28,
545-562.
|
|
Catalonia
|
|
Spain
|
Europe
|
|
Catalan funding
|
800
|
(7,5)
|
|
|
|
Spanish funding
|
1213
|
(11,4)
|
6552
|
|
|
European funding
|
8640
|
(81,1)
|
48640
|
768000
|
|
Total
|
10653
|
|
55192
|
768000
|
