Universities and public research organizations are said to be an integrative and essential element of a functioning innovation system as they play a vital role not only in the generation of new technological knowledge, but also in its diffusion. We analyse four East German local networks of innovators which differ in structure and innovative performance and investigate the characteristic role of public research within these local systems by applying methods of social network analysis. Our results show that universities and non-university institutions of public research are key actors in all regional networks of innovators both in terms of patent output and in terms of centrality of their position in the networks. Further we find the 'thicker' networks to have more central public research organizations. Higher centrality of public research compared to private actors may be due to the fact that universities are explicitly designed to give away their knowledge and that they increasingly face the need to raise external funds.
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Paper provided by Friedrich-Schiller-Universit�t Jena, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakult�t in its series Jenaer Schriften zur Wirtschaftswissenschaft with number
19/2006.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: O31 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology R11 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Analysis of Growth, Development, and Changes
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