Collaborer ou sous-traiter pour innover. L’incidence des financements publics

Since it was created in 1983, France?s CIR research tax credit has supported R&D activities subcontracted to approved research organisations. Numerous other schemes have gradually been introduced to complement this measure by targeting different forms of collaborative or contractual research. This article aims to shed light on these public policy choices by 1) reviewing the factors that encourage companies to cooperate in order to innovate and to choose one type of partnership over another; and 2) comparing changes in the take-up of partnership R&D with trends in the public funding devoted to it. Over the last fifteen years, partnership R&D has evolved in a mixed fashion. Thus, the weight of R&D expenditure outsourced outside enterprises has remained stable, except for SMEs, which have seen a significant increase. Similarly, the proportion of companies that cooperate to innovate has increased little, whereas the variety of their partners has clearly expanded. These findings are relatively consistent with an aid system that favours R&D spending by smaller companies and is mainly aimed at a target of highly specialised companies.