Globalisation and trends in international R&D alliances

The growth of collaborative activity is greatly influenced by the process of globalisation. This paper focuses on the narrow area of collaborative R&D activity, and takes a ‘macro’ view of the effects of these developments. Globalisation has affected the need of firms to collaborate, in that firms now seek opportunities to cooperate, rather than identify situations where they can achieve majority control. The use of collaboration is particularly acute in capital-intensive and knowledge-intensive sectors. These are also the sectors where firms have expanded internationally fastest, as they need to compete in various markets simultaneously, but also to exploit and acquire assets and technology that may be specific to particular locations. The increasing similarity of technologies across countries and cross-fertilisation of technology between sectors, coupled with the increasing costs and risks associated with innovation has led firms to consider R&D alliances as a first-best option in many instances. This has important welfare implications and impinges directly on the industrial competitiveness of locations.