Global cooperation in research

Research Policy 27 Ž1998. 611–626

Global cooperation in research Luke Georghiou Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST), UniÕersity of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Abstract This article examines the emerging phenomenon of global cooperation in research between industrialised countries, manifested in large increases in copublication between Europe and other regions, increasing focus on single global facilities in big science and the emergence of global cooperative programmes. Motivations for cooperation are examined, distinguishing between direct benefits to the research and indirect strategic, economic or political benefits. Barriers include the growing significance of competitiveness issues and a mismatch of institutions. It is concluded that formal arrangements are beginning to catch up with the very substantial extent of ‘bottom-up’ global cooperation. Issues are raised for European programmes including the nature of a European platform within global alliances, the strategic position of Europe in the broader pattern of scientific relations and the impracticability of maintaining programmes with restricted access to foreign participants. q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Global cooperation; Research; Barrier

1. Introduction Cooperation in science and technology in industrialised countries in policy terms has largely been perceived as a national or regional Žparticularly European. phenomenon. The past decade has seen a substantial growth in cooperation with a wider scope, between continents and often on a global scale. The earlier regional perspective was founded upon the apparent predominance of such cooperations, particularly in publicly funded activities. Hence Europe has its Framework and EUREKA programmes, each with its principal rationale being support for the competitiveness of European industry. Long-standing European institutions include CERN, the European Space Agency Žand its predecessors. and the European Science Foundation. In the USA, after a somewhat belated conversion to the merits of collaboration with the passage of the National Cooperative Re-

search Act of 1984, institutions such as MCC and Sematech represented early manifestations before the establishment of the Advanced Technology Programme. Japan has long been noted for its collaborative programmes, which in many ways formed the role model for subsequent efforts in the West, albeit with a degree of misperception. 1 This policy focus was supported by data which showed coauthored scientific papers to be primarily national or intraregional, with for example intra-EU coauthorship being almost six times more frequent than coauthorship with other countries ŽEuropean Commission, 1994..

1

MITI sponsored programmes such as the VLSI Project were perceived as demonstrating the benefits of precompetitive research but Western observers underestimated the amount of highly competitive R&D being pursued in parallel within the companies concerned and the dislike among Japanese companies Žshared with their Western counterparts. for working with competitors.

0048-7333r98r$19.00 q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 4 8 - 7 3 3 3 Ž 9 8 . 0 0 0 5 4 - 7

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L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

A similar, though less-marked, picture existed for R & D cooperative agreements between firms where it has been rare for international strategic technology partnerships to exceed the number of domestic or regional partnerships ŽHagedoorn, 1994.. In this paper, the focus will be on the phenomenon of global cooperation in science and technology, defined here as international cooperation across two or more continents between researchers from advanced industrial countries. This will be examined from the perspective of the cooperation of researchers from the EUrEEA 2 with their counterparts in North America, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Australasia. The focus is mainly upon scientific cooperation; industrial collaboration will only be addressed peripherally. It will be argued that despite the existence of long-standing relationships between the regions concerned, there have been significant changes in the past decade in the scale and composition of those relationships. The second part of the paper examines the motivations which are driving these developments and the barriers to the realisation of global cooperation. Finally conclusions are drawn on the implications and potential future developments.

2. Global cooperation—the evidence In attempting to measure the nature and extent of global cooperation several dimensions need to be addressed, covering both formal activities as represented by large facilities, specific programmes of support and activity governed by scientific agreements, and the informal cooperation undertaken by scientists as they travel, communicate and exchange ideas and materials without embodying the relationship in a contract. Since both formal and informal cooperation may lead to joint production of outputs, the principal distinction between the two types for the purposes of this paper will be the existence of a contract or agreement at national or institutional level governing the relationship where the prime

2 EUrEEA refers to member states of the European Union plus the members of the European Economic Area ŽIceland, Liechtenstein and Norway..

purpose is to promote cooperation. The existence of funding does not automatically lead to a classification of cooperation as formal, since scientists may use national project funding to pay for travel abroad during which cooperation takes place. The two types often operate in a complementary manner, whereby research which is substantially funded at a national level is enhanced by additional marginal funding allowing some form of international exchange. Informal cooperation may also be the antecedent of a more formalised relationship—evaluations of travel assistance schemes have shown that a frequent outcome is a joint application for project funding ŽCunningham and Reeve, 1994.. The principal modalities of international cooperation are researcher exchange Žincluding fellowships.; workshops or other meetings; cooperative projects or networks Žranging from exchange of results through to fully interactive partnerships with a division of labour between participants.; the offering of access to, or sharing the cost of scientific instruments or large-scale facilities; longer term relationships between laboratories Žinvolving any of the above.; participation in national programmes of the collaborating country; establishment of subsidiary laboratories in the partner country; and sponsorship or participation in national programmes. Within Europe the cooperative project has been the dominant mode, largely due to the funding impetus of the Framework and other programmes, but on a global scale researcher exchange and big science predominate. However, the global project has also begun to emerge. Some evidence of the growth in different types of activity is given below. 2.1. Informal cooperation One of the difficulties in estimating the scale of scientific cooperation between industrialised countries is that it is dominated by informal cooperation between scientists as defined above. In consequence, frequently there is no accessible budgetary or other input record of its existence. This is in contrast to cooperation with less-developed or transition economies which is frequently supported by a formal framework and budget, if only because the scientists in those countries are unable to respond without such

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

resources. Informal cooperation is probably as old as science itself, with remote communication gradually being supplemented by various forms of mobility including training and visiting fellowships and emigration of scientists who subsequently maintained links with colleagues in their country of origin. 3 Other forms of such cooperation include the exchange of experimental materials or the combination of results. Apart from the funding records of formal fellowship and travel schemes, such cooperation is largely unrecorded, often being funded out of normal project resources. Some indication of the scale of such activity comes from a recent report by the Critical Technologies Institute ŽWagner, 1997. which estimated that the USA spent more than US$3.3 billion in 1995 on international R & D cooperation. This was calculated on the basis of an examination of references to cooperation in a database on Federal funding for scientific projects of any kind. Though ranging into mission-oriented fields, this sum far exceeds any ‘dedicated’ cooperation budgets. As indicated above, a well-established measure of scientific cooperation comes from the pattern of international scientific copublication ŽFrame and Carpenter, 1979; Luukkonen et al., 1993; Lewison and Cunningham, 1991.. While this encompasses the outputs of both formal and informal cooperation, the scale of outputs generally far exceeds that which would be expected on the basis of formal schemes. The residual may be assumed to result from informal links. The limitations of this approach have been thoroughly examined by Katz and Martin Ž1997. but it remains a valid, if partial indicator. There is evidence to show that this approach underestimates the effect on publication. The evaluation of the International Human Frontier Science Program ŽARArPREST, 1996a. showed that 91.5% of papers in key journals acknowledging support from the Program did not have more than one grantee as an

author. Questioned about this the scientists indicated that all teams had benefited from the cooperation but had chosen to publish separately. Table 1 shows a dramatic increase in both the absolute number and relative share of all EUrEEA papers accounted for by coauthorship with the selected countries over the decade 1985–95. 4 Discounting Korea, which began from a very low base of activity, the number of internationally coauthored papers has broadly trebled while the percentage of all EUrEEA papers they account for has doubled. Despite the advance of the Asian countries, the USA remains by far the most frequent partner country for coauthorship. Table 2 shows for 1985 the absolute number of each EUrEEA country’s coauthored papers in all fields with each of the listed non-European countries. In the lower part of the table the percentage of that EUrEEA country’s total publications which is accounted for by the coauthored papers shown above is given. Table 3 repeats this for 1995. The position of the UK is worthy of particular comment, with absolute numbers presumably raised by the shared native English language with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and its common usage for scientific publication for Japan and Korea. On the other hand, the share of collaborative papers for the UK is lowered by its high production of papers overall. Comparing the two tables, it may be seen that the traditional relationship between the UK and Australia led to the UK accounting for around half of all EUrEEA coauthorships in 1985 but that this fell to under 40% by 1995. A similar pattern applies for New Zealand. The UK is also the most frequent coauthorship country with the USA in 1985. Germany, second in 1985, draws level by 1995. Spain, emerging from a period of political isolation, shows a significant increase.

4

3

The role of expatriate scientists is an interesting topic, with some European countries having explicit policies to make use of them as an independent source of peer reviewers who nonetheless have the appropriate linguistic skills and cultural background. Expatriates also act as contact points around which international collaborative projects can coalesce.

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Results were based upon cleaned data extracted from the Science Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information covering all fields. Country assignment was based on the location of the research institution and not on the nationality of the authorŽs.. The assignment was made using all recorded addresses. Thus a copublication link between two countries was established whenever the two given countries cooccurred in the corporate address field of a publication.

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

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Table 1 Increase in number and proportion of EUrEEA collaborative papers with industrialised countries 1985

Australia Canada Japan New Zealand Korea USA

1995

% increase

No. of coauthored papers with EUrEEA

% of all EUrEEA papers

No. of coauthored papers with EUrEEA

% of all EUrEEA papers

No.

Proportion

676 1372 775 138 30 8860

0.45 0.91 0.52 0.09 0.02 5.89

2040 3739 3100 435 536 22132

0.88 1.61 1.33 0.19 0.23 9.52

302 273 400 315 1787 250

196 177 256 211 1150 162

Source: RASCI to PREST specification from ISI data.

The UK and France are the most frequent coauthors with Canada throughout the period but decline in their share as Germany rises. Germany has the highest share with Korea, followed by the UK, while the UK draws level as lead coauthorship country with Japan by 1995. Over the decade Italy has a substantial increase in its share of coauthorships with both countries. Norway and Spain also show some advances with Japan. For Korea, the situation evolves from one of cooperation with only a few countries to a more general involvement, with notable increases by Austria, France, the Netherlands and Spain. In summary, the analysis of coauthorships shows a very substantial increase in activity between Europe and the other industrialised countries. There is a continuing preeminence of Europe’s larger scientific nations but an erosion of traditional relationships within the former colonial spheres of the UK and France and a growing involvement for some other EUrEEA nations. 2.2. Formalised cooperation By contrast with the activities described above, patterns of cooperation may also be examined in their formal dimension as captured in international scientific agreements. While some would argue that these are more a measure of bureaucratic than of scientific activity, they nonetheless embody the priorities of their time of inception. The data on these are far from perfect but the USA and Canada are unusually assiduous in maintaining inventories. Tables 4 and 5 show the evolution by subject area of

these agreements for each country by comparing current agreements signed before 1990 with those commencing after that year. In the case of the USA some traditional areas such as nuclear energy Žmainly safety., earth sciences and space remain prominent while defence cooperation agreements increase. One reason for the predominance of these areas is that they are generally executed by national agencies which are more likely to require the framework of a formal agreement. Transport declines significantly as does biomedical and health Žthough it may be that the rise of multilateral activity in this area compensates.. The pattern for agreements with Canada Žwhich uses a slightly different classification to reflect differences in the databases. shows a predominance of agreements covering multiple areas of science and technology Žlisted as ‘All’ in Table 5.. Compared with the USA, defence, nuclear and space are relatively less important. Over time the greatest relative growth is in agreements covering scientific and technological information, and in biomedical and health. For both countries the lack of dramatic change is more notable than such changes as have taken place. This may partly be accounted for by the self-perpetuating nature of agreements where, without real budgetary implications, the exit costs of a failure to renew may exceed any gain in efficiency. It is not uncommon for those involved in an area even at an administrative level to be unaware of the full range of agreements to which technically they are parties. However, one increasing phenomenon is that of the ‘scientific umbrella agreement’ concluded between

0.56% 0.97% 0.43% 0.19% 0.02% 6.86%

23 40 18 8 1 284

DK

0.38% 0.54% 0.77% 0.07% 0.04% 6.22%

111 159 228 22 11 1837

DE

0.83% 0.70% 0.30% 0.07% 0.07% 6.89%

25 21 9 2 2 208

FI 2 14 5 1 0 132

GR

0.26% 0.16% 1.55% 1.13% 0.59% 0.40% 0.02% 0.08% 0.01% 0.00% 5.67% 10.68%

62 363 138 4 2 1329

FR

0.00% 1.25% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 15.00%

0 1 0 0 0 12

IS

0.67% 2.45% 0.11% 0.11% 0.00% 5.23%

6 22 1 1 0 47

IE

Source: RASCI to PREST specification from ISI data. Country abbreviations are ISO Standard 3166 two letter codes except that UK replaces GB.

0.18% 0.47% 0.43% 0.07% 0.00% 5.46%

0.26% 1.29% 0.83% 0.11% 0.02% 6.35%

12 59 38 5 1 291

AU CA JP NZ KR US

BE

AU CA JP NZ KR US

5 13 12 2 0 151

Code AT

1985

0.13% 0.60% 0.29% 0.04% 0.02% 6.89%

16 72 35 5 2 823

IT

0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 25.00%

0 1 0 0 0 2

LI

0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

0 0 0 0 0 0

LU

0.37% 0.89% 0.56% 0.10% 0.00% 6.24%

33 80 51 9 0 563

NL

0.38% 1.11% 0.12% 0.04% 0.00% 7.65%

10 29 3 1 0 199

NO

0.57% 1.43% 0.57% 0.00% 0.00% 10.86%

2 5 2 0 0 38

PT

0.06% 0.44% 0.12% 0.00% 0.00% 3.70%

3 21 6 0 0 178

ES

Coauthored papers between EUrEEA and industrialised countries Ž1985 . — number and share of all EUrEEA country national papers in all fields

Table 2

0.39% 0.71% 0.50% 0.05% 0.02% 7.38%

33 60 42 4 2 625

SE

0.77% 0.95% 0.43% 0.17% 0.02% 4.92%

333 412 187 74 9 2141

UK

0.45% 0.91% 0.52% 0.09% 0.02% 5.89%

676 1372 775 138 30 8860

All

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626 615

71 114 88 16 21 739

DK 20 93 85 6 16 592

FI

0.83% 0.40% 1.27% 1.84% 1.58% 1.68% 0.18% 0.12% 0.23% 0.32% 9.69% 11.71%

383 582 727 82 104 4448

DE 7 51 29 5 16 303

GR 1 8 3 1 0 34

IS

0.62% 0.26% 0.48% 2.08% 1.92% 3.83% 1.17% 1.09% 1.44% 0.08% 0.19% 0.48% 0.20% 0.60% 0.00% 8.93% 11.43% 16.27%

226 762 429 31 75 3268

FR

Source: RASCI to PREST specification from ISI data.

1.00% 0.83% 1.21% 1.26% 1.67% 1.95% 1.22% 1.25% 1.51% 0.20% 0.21% 0.27% 0.44% 0.08% 0.36% 9.79% 10.39% 12.64%

59 119 89 15 6 741

AU 46 CA 58 JP 56 NZ 9 KR 20 US 449

AU CA JP NZ KR US

BE

Code AT

1995

0.58% 2.52% 1.29% 0.06% 0.00% 8.91%

9 39 20 1 0 138

IE

0.54% 1.52% 1.33% 0.07% 0.35% 11.16%

121 342 300 16 78 2510

IT

0.00% 0.00% 7.14% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

0 0 1 0 0 0

LI

0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 2.13%

0 0 0 0 0 1

LU 24 62 55 11 4 392

NO

7 21 11 1 1 152

PT

0.86% 0.68% 0.52% 1.75% 1.75% 1.55% 1.45% 1.55% 0.81% 0.20% 0.31% 0.07% 0.30% 0.11% 0.07% 10.40% 11.05% 11.18%

128 260 216 30 45 1544

NL

0.36% 1.05% 0.58% 0.05% 0.38% 7.46%

51 149 82 7 54 1059

ES

Table 3 Coauthored papers between EUrEEA and industrialised countries Ž1995 . — number and share of all EUrEEA country national papers in all fields

1.22% 1.87% 1.59% 0.27% 0.13% 11.37%

141 217 184 31 15 1317

SE

1.36% 1.57% 1.32% 0.32% 0.15% 8.11%

746 862 725 173 81 4445

UK

0.88% 1.61% 1.33% 0.19% 0.23% 9.52%

2040 3739 3100 435 536 22,132

All

616 L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

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Table 4 Evolution of bilateral scientific agreements between the USA and EUrEEA countries

Agricultural sciences Biomedical and health General cultural Žincluding S & T. Environment Earthrgeo and natural resources Energy Marine science Nuclear energy Space and atmospheric Scientific and technical information Transport Technical R & D Ždefence. Umbrella agreement Total

Pre-1990 ŽNo..

Post-1990 ŽNo..

Pre-1990 Ž%.

Post-1990 Ž%.

3 11 1 3 14 4 1 32 18 2 11 17 1 118

0 1 0 2 7 1 0 16 7 3 1 19 2 59

3 9 1 3 12 3 1 27 15 2 9 14 1 100

0 2 0 3 12 2 0 27 12 5 2 32 3 100

Source: Based on data in Clinton Ž1995. Žexcludes multilateral agreements, and environmental education. The report includes agreements which had formally lapsed but where activity continued pending renewal..

nations to facilitate cooperation across a range of activities and fields through provision of a broad framework. Despite difficulties over agreeing an annex on intellectual property, several European countries and the European Commission are in the process of concluding agreements of this type with the USA. Two explanations may be tendered, one that the agreement provides a background for more bottom-up cooperation and the second that the presence of an agreement legitimates the participation of gov-

ernment agencies who therefore may find it easier to get funding for cooperative work. The growing significance attached to intellectual property aspects is indicative that economically significant research in biotechnology, IT and other non-traditional areas for cooperation are included. 2.3. Big science cooperation The provision of large-scale scientific facilities has long been an area of international cooperation. In

Table 5 Evolution of bilateral scientific agreements between Canada and EUrEEA countries Subject

Pre-1990

Post-1990

Pre-1990 Ž%.

Post-1990 Ž%.

All Agricultural Sciences Biomedical and health Defence Nuclear energy Environment Earthrgeo and natural resources Marine science Space and atmospheric Scientific and technological information Other Total

20 1 5 6 3 7 8 3 3 4 0 60

12 1 6 3 1 4 5 1 2 6 4 45

33 2 8 10 5 12 13 5 5 7 0 100

27 2 13 7 2 9 11 2 4 13 9 100

Source: Inventory of Federal and Provincial Science and Technology Arrangements, Science and Technology Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada, July 1997.

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

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some cases, notably astronomy, cooperation was necessitated by geography, whereby countries with scientific and monetary resources would cooperate with those providing a premium location. However, for other types of facility, provision Žthough not necessarily access. was seen as a matter of national or regional pride, leading to separate and often competing activity in space and nuclear physics. Here too, there have been changes in the past decade, driven principally by the high cost of such activities and their increasingly precarious position in national priorities. Two European scientific organisations, ESA and CERN, are particularly important vectors for cooperation between Europe and other industrial countries. Each one is discussed briefly in turn. 2.3.1. European Space Agency (ESA) ESA is an intergovernmental organisation whose main task is to provide for and promote cooperation among European states in space research, technology and applications. 5 It accounts for all of the space activities of its members with the exceptions of France, Germany, Italy and the UK, which also have national programmes and agencies Žand have their own bilateral agreements with third countries.. International cooperation with the USA dates from the period of ESA’s formation in the 1970s when the US proposed participation in its Space Shuttle Programme through provision of a laboratory that would be flown in the shuttle’s cargo bay. A series of spacelabs have flown since 1983 investigating areas such as microgravity and the atmosphere. These are considered to have laid the foundation for ESA’s most important agreement with its international partners, the International Space Station ŽISS.. This is governed by an overall Intergovernmental Agreement ŽIGA. involving the USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and ESA, supplemented by bilateral agreements between ESA and the agencies concerned. European participation was approved by the ESA Council in October 1995, heralding an eight-year development programme beginning on 1 January 1996. The principal contribution, a pressurised laboratory, the Columbus Orbital Facility, is being devel-

5

ESA Convention Article 2.

oped under the biggest single contract ever issued by ESA. There has been some evidence of discomfort with the degree to which ESA is involved with the USA from France, Europe’s leading space nation, where the new Minister for Education, Research and Technology has described Europe’s attitude as being reactive to American policies when they should be collaborative but not subordinate ŽOutlook on Science Policy, 1997.. ESA has also been a vehicle for cooperation with Canada and Japan outside the ISS framework. Canada has special status as the only non-European country participating directly in ESA programmes as an ESA Cooperating State since 1979. 2.3.2. CERN Founded in 1954, CERN now has 19 European member states combing their resources in experimental particle physics. The high performance of CERN has long been a source of attraction for scientists from non-member countries. Since 1974, 114 organisations from the USA, 40 from Japan, 17 from Canada, six from Korea and three from Australia have participated in CERN experiments or R & D projects. There are approximately 800 US scientists working at CERN out of a total of 6500 users and 300 staff. However, once more the nature of the relationship is being transformed as CERN’s new facility, the Large Hadron Collider is built. Designed to collide strongly interacting particles, this experiment is expected to be commissioned at a cost of ECU 1595 million. In this case, very substantial contributions are being made to the cost by nonmembers, with the US Department of Energy and NSF contributing ECU 417 million in equipment construction and purchase of equipment in the US; ECU 63 million from Japan to date, and Can$30 million from Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory in equipment construction. In general, scientific activities requiring a high capital threshold are likely to become increasingly global and engender a certain division of labour. The arguments for and against hosting facilities of this type have been well-rehearsed ŽBarker, 1995. but the increasing cost of facilities coupled with a high level of mobility for scientists makes the likelihood of such establishments operating on a global basis ever

L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

greater. The activities of the OECD Megascience Forum provide evidence of this trend. Clearly the driver here is the need to share costs, which have escalated first beyond national ability and then beyond regional capacity to sustain. While the nobility of the goals of these organisations is beyond doubt, it is clear that global cooperation is the end of the trajectory. Henceforth, the rationale for supporting areas of research not in tune with the current trend towards socio-economic relevance will have to be argued at the national level without the prospect of significant further savings from cooperation. The risks in such an approach are discussed in the conclusion to this paper. 2.4. Global collaboratiÕe programmes A new phenomenon has been the development of collaborative programmes whose raison d’etre ˆ is to foster global collaboration in research through project support. It is not coincidental that the initiative for two of the most prominent of these, the Human Frontier Science Program and the Intelligent Machine Systems project, has come from Japan, as a part of its strategy of bringing itself to up to the front of knowledge creation and putting more back into research. The concept of the Human Frontier Science Program ŽHFSP. was proposed by then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone at the Venice Economic Summit in June of 1987. In this proposal, Japan noted its desire to increase its contribution to international basic research. Following development of the concept by international committees representing the seven Economic Summit countries and the European Commission, an agreement was reached in July 1989 at an intergovernmental meeting in Berlin as to the goals and structure of the programme. The main intent of the HFSP is to foster intercontinental collaboration in fundamental research on biological functions, through a program based on international peer review. In addition, there are a number of subsidiary goals, primarily to promote interdisciplinary research, to promote intercontinental research, and to involve younger researchers. In order to ensure a timely start, Japan agreed to contribute significant funding to the HFSP during an

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initial three-year phase, with the remaining support coming from other partner countries termed the management supporting parties ŽMSPs.. The programme’s Secretariat was incorporated as a nonprofit association in October 1989 in Strasbourg, France, and the first annual awards were made in March 1990. Current MSP members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Commission Žrepresenting the smaller member states of the EU.. The annual budget of the HFSP from 1990 to 1994 has varied from about 26 million ECUs to 36 million ECUs, with Japan contributing roughly 80%, Canada and the US providing about 10%, and the European countries giving about 10%. In response to Japanese pressure and the perceived success of the programme, the other MSPs are increasing their contributions. HFSP operates through grants and fellowships. For the research grants programme, 92.7% are intercontinental in character Žwith the largest links between North America and Europe Ž36.6%. and over a third Ž35.8%. involve all three participating continents. The Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Project ŽIMS. was proposed by Japan in 1989 with the broad aim of being a trilateral research programme involving the USA, Europe and Japan in developing technology for future automated factories. The initial proposal provoked concerns about the equity of the benefits, and hence, after extensive negotiations among the governments concerned and potential private sector participants, terms of reference for a two-year feasibility study were agreed in 1991. Six participants—Australia, Canada, the European Community, five EFTA countries, Japan and the United States—took part in five test cases and one study project aimed at gaining practical experience of collaboration. Each participant funded its own participation with no financial resources crossing borders. Technical topics covered included enterprise integration and global manufacturing, systemisation of manufacturing knowledge, the control of distributed intelligent systems, techniques for rapid product distributed intelligent systems, and ‘clean’ manufacturing in the process industries. The research was carried out by consortia which were interregional, geographically distributed and decentralised. These involved a total of 140 public

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L. Georghiour Research Policy 27 (1998) 611–626

and private entities, consisting of 73 companies and 67 universities or research institutes, from 21 countries. European contributions Žpublic and private. for this phase amounted to 40% of the total cost of over 3 million ECUs, of which 62% was publicly funded. In addition, three international committees oversaw the development and evaluation of a framework and modalities for international cooperation. The final report of the International Steering Committee concluded that the feasibility study had clearly demonstrated the workability of the framework, and that this enhanced global manufacturing cooperation. A recommendation was made for the launch of a 10-year full-scale programme to be operated by a single international management committee, regional secretariats and a small interregional secretariat. Five of the original participants ŽAustralia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and USA. have now ratified the terms of reference of IMS and four meetings of the International IMS Steering Committee ŽISC. have taken place. The remaining original participant, the European Union, joined the scheme on 1 May 1997. The Republic of Korea has applied to become a new participant. A framework of technical themes has been developed to encourage possible project partners to develop proposals for global cooperation. The most interesting point about these global programmes is that they provide, for the first time, a systematic framework for supporting projects, in addition to the types of mobility already well-supported in the international arena. As such they allow closer forms of collaborative working and appear to have provided the participants with new types of synergies which have extended those available from regional programmes. For example, the evaluation of the International Human Frontier Science Program found that researchers saw the greatest value of doing intercontinental research as being the exposure it offers to different traditions and methods of approaching problems; as one researcher put it ‘‘Science isn’t just science’’ ŽARArPREST, 1996b.. While it may be assumed that European and Japanese scientists would in general benefit from closer contact with the USA, which has a leading position in the fields covered by the program, it was less predictable that the reverse has also turned out to be

true. The IMS programme extends these activities to the academic–industrial sphere. A question for the future is whether the ad hoc organisations which have successfully managed these first global programmes offer a superior approach to the simpler expedient of opening national or regional programmes to global participation.

3. Motivations for global cooperation The motivations for research collaboration involving industry have been analysed many times ŽKatz, 1986; Chesnais, 1988; Cameron and Georghiou, 1988. but it is worth rehearsing the arguments as they apply in the specific context of global cooperation in science and technology. Broadly speaking, such motivations may be seen as falling into two categories: Ž1. direct benefits to the S & T concerned, allowing the research to be performed or applied at a higher quality, with a broader scope, more quickly or more economically than would be the case without cooperation; Ž2. indirect benefits arising from the existence of the cooperation. These may accrue directly to the participants Žfor example through enhancement of reputation, access to further research funds. or more generally to the countries involved in terms of political economic or social benefits. A recent study of such relationships ŽGeorghiou and Hinder, 1998. showed six groupings to be of particular significance. 3.1. (a) Direct benefits Access to complementary expertise, knowledge or skills to enhance scientific or technological excellence provides the principal motivation for cooperation between industrial countries in virtually all cases. Furthermore, the wider the geographical coverage of a programme, the greater the chance becomes of finding exactly the right partner. The motivation to find external expertise is particularly strong for smaller countries where national expertise may be absent in more areas. Hence, in Finland the overall national strategy for development of a knowledgebased society ŽScience and Technology Policy Coun-

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cil of Finland, 1996. includes an explicit commitment to the development of international S & T cooperation as a central development objective in the innovation system. The same can be true of larger countries which consider themselves to be deficient in certain areas, as evidenced by the growing Japanese commitment to international collaboration ŽScience and Technology Agency, 1996a; Barker, 1996.. International collaboration was at a low level until 1987, since when the Japanese government has devoted significant and growing resources for such exchanges, using a budget known as Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology. It is the promotion of international research exchange which has most widely penetrated the research community. There has been a spectacular growth in the number of Japanese researchers and engineers leaving Japan for the purpose of scientific research or investigation, rising from 17,293 in 1985 to 104,430 in 1995. Of the latter, 28,552 went to Europe ŽJapanese Ministry of Justice, 1997.. Over the same period, the number of foreign researchers and engineers entering Japan for the purpose of research and technology rose from 2419 in 1985 to 24,868 in 1995. Ultimately the motivation of access to knowledge holds for any research team which discovers a team with something it lacks but needs beyond national borders. Not only is there a wider choice of partners but there is also a greater possibility of avoiding scientific rivals in ever more competitive national systems. Access to unique sites, facilities or population groups is a second source of motivation. In this case cooperation stems from the desire to perform research on, for example, a natural phenomenon present in one of the countries. An example here is Iceland which, though a very small country, attracts foreign collaborators and has developed strengths in geology and geothermal energy arising form its geographical endowment ŽHinder, 1997.. Geosciences, climate and environment form the hub of German collaboration with Canada ŽAdvisory Council on Science and Technology, 1997.. Sharing costs and risks is also an important motive and, in a particular case of the above motivation, may be operational, as noted above, where one country is the ‘host’ to a large Žand expensive. scientific

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instrument. Cooperation is then based on some form of joint use of that facility, either by sharing the cost and ownership, as for example with the AngloAustralian telescope, an optical instrument initiated in 1970 Žto take advantage of Australia’s Southern Hemisphere location. and jointly funded with equal access to astronomers from both countries ŽAngloAustralian Observatory, 1994.. A new example is the Neutrino Observatory being developed at Sudbury in Canada which is being constructed 6800 feet underground in a section of a mine owned by INCO. Costs are being shared with the USA and the UK. The availability of the mine greatly reduces the cost of this experiment ŽAdvisory Council on Science and Technology, 1997.. With Japan’s increasing investment in basic science, including large facilities, this is increasingly becoming a basis for collaboration with European countries. RIKEN, the Japanese Institute for Physical and Chemical Research, has contributed to a Muon facility in the UK and will be involved in further collaboration based upon its new SPring-8 facility in Japan ŽScience and Technology Agency, 1996b.. Addressing transnational or global problems forms another motivation and is exemplified by research on fisheries and medical cooperation Žnotably epidemiology. undertaken by several countries. Establishing standards has thus far not emerged as a prominent activity in scientific collaboration between industrialised countries, although there are some multilateral arrangements for laboratories working on measurement standards. Much of this activity is likely to take place within industrial collaborations. 3.2. (b) Indirect benefits Indirect or strategic motiÕations describe the situation where the collaboration is driven by external goals of a political, economic or cultural nature. These wider goals may apply directly to the participants. For example, as noted above smaller projects or exchange visits can provide the means to work up further, larger scale funding from other sources, perhaps more downstream or there may be reputational benefits in the other country which attracts contracts or research students. Learning benefits may also occur, concerning working in the other country.

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All of the above may be founded upon the long term friendships which may form during a collaboration. Several countries in Europe have historic scientific links with the USA, with an initial impetus coming from large scale military assistance. In the Portuguese case a specific foundation exists to sponsor research and other exchanges as a compensation package for use of military airbases. Other factors behind links with the USA include general fluency in the English language, enabling movement of researchers and linkages with expatriate communities in the USA. Arising at the national strategic level, a common policy aim is to align international cooperation with domestic priorities. With many countries trying to focus their national research systems upon the contribution they can make to the prosperity and well-being of their citizens, it is not surprising that there is a similar desire to apply this logic to collaboration. This has been expressed through national research priorities which cluster around the generic group of technologies which emerge around the top of all critical technologies lists and foresight programmes and are manifested in newer collaborations which tend to address these familiar themes of IT, biomedicine, environment and new materials. One example is the UK, which has an explicit policy of aligning its international cooperative activities with national priorities deriving from the Foresight Programme ŽOffice of Science and Technology, 1996.. An aspect of cooperation is the need to identify areas with some priority for both sides, meaning that a degree of compromise is needed. There is an interesting trade-off here. While there is most to be gained in terms of knowledge acquisition from collaborating in an area of your own weakness and the partner’s strength, strict adherence to this approach would lead to a collaboration portfolio which was the opposite of national strengths and priorities. To avoid this trap a balanced portfolio is needed. For example, if the collaborative activities between Germany and the USA are examined, areas of mutual interest are energy research, laser technology, space and medicine. This represents a trade-off between a German lead in the first two and an American lead in the latter two areas. Scientific cooperation can be seen as the key to broader political or economic opportunities. Beyond

the cliche´ of the scientific agreement being produced during a state visit when there has been failure to agree on more substantial matters, there is a new competitive atmosphere developing in terms of signing such agreements with newly industrialising countries, including Korea. Documents urging increase in such relations cite examples of scientists who have benefited from exchange fellowships placing substantial orders for equipment in the host country upon their return, or providing a contact point for potential inward investors ŽOffice of Science and Technology, 1995.. Needless to say, such collaborations are pointed in the direction of economic priorities rather than less obviously exploitable areas. The USA sets out its rationale for international scientific cooperation in terms of the contribution S & T make to the five major tenets of US post-Cold War foreign policy: building democracy, promoting and maintaining peace, promoting economic growth and sustainable development, addressing global problems, and providing humanitarian assistance. Of these, promoting economic growth is the most important for cooperation with industrialised countries, raising issues such as ‘‘assuring continued access to foreign programmes, and contributing to a fairer and more transparent marketplace in areas such as standards development and the protection of intellectual property rights’’ ŽClinton, 1995..

4. Barriers to international collaboration A discussion of the motivations for collaboration needs to be balanced by a consideration of the barriers which need to be overcome ŽGeorghiou, 1993.. Underpinning many barriers is the question of competitiveness. As noted above, there is a trend towards collaboration in areas of science which are considered to be of industrial significance. At the heart of any competitiveness rationale is some form of relative analysis; an increase in market share is by definition at someone else’s expense ŽGeorghiou and Metcalfe, 1993. Approaches to collaboration in areas of research which are potentially exploitable by industry are thus prone to concerns about whether firms in the rival trading block will gain a greater advantage. While an individual firm or research or-

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ganisation may see advantage for itself in a particular collaboration, this may be at the expense of another firm in the same region. Arguments of this nature have carried considerable weight in governmental circles. In the face of competitiveness concerns there has been a focus on arrangements for intellectual property rights, which seek to regulate the basis on which collaboration is conducted ŽCameron, 1997.. An important question is whether the arguments about exploitation by foreign firms remain sustainable in the face of globalised industry where many large firms have an R & D presence in regions other than their home base, in some cases explicitly to link with the local science base ŽTurner et al., 1997.. Closely related are barriers arising from ‘institutional mismatch’. Different regions or nations have very different structures and priorities for research support. This can mean that governmental involvement is manifested through support for different types of institution. Hence, what is fundamentally the same research could be supported by grants to individual academics in the USA, through research in a governmental laboratory in Japan and by support for an international consortium in Europe. Concerns about mismatch arise not only because of potential confusion in identifying the right partner but because one party may feel that the other’s institutional setting gives it an advantageous position in terms of exploiting the results. In addition, an inappropriate attempt to pair apparent institutional counterparts may combine higher quality teams from one side with lower quality ones from the other. There may be an even greater mismatch between the agencies responsible for supporting such work. ‘Who’s in charge?’ is a frequent refrain in both directions, as non-Europeans try to identify whether it is appropriate in given circumstances to deal with the European Commission or individual member states, while Europeans find it equally difficult to navigate the pluralistic and overlapping responsibilities of US agencies, or the delineations between federal and provincial institutions in other countries. With the growing research involvement of international organisations a new set of subsidiarity issues is developing around the question of whether to locate a particular collaborative project in a bilateral, multilateral or international context. The situation is

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further complicated by the complex European position whereby the European Commission operates its own programmes, acts as the secretariat for COST without being a member, represents the interests of some but not all of its member states in the Human Frontier Science Program, Žwhile others have individual membership. and represents all member states in the Intelligent Machine Systems Programme. Governmental activity may obstruct R & D collaboration by direct and indirect means. In the former category are standard intellectual property terms, and restrictions on foreign access to national programmes. Broader policies which impinge upon research collaboration include nuclear nonproliferation terms, trade friction, regulation policies, fair-trading, antitrust legislation and other controls on export of technology. Collaboration may also be difficult to sustain in the environment of public finance. The long term nature of some collaborative projects requires commitments which are of a longer duration than governments are able to deliver. Under these circumstances, collaborators run the risk that the other party will change priorities and withdraw support, leaving the project nonviable. On the other hand, there is a political cost to withdrawal from collaboration which can result in government becoming ‘locked-in’ to a project which it does not wish to continue. To the range of policy barriers identified above may be added a list of project-level challenges to be overcome, these being in broadly ascending order of importance distance, language and culture.

5. Conclusions To summarise the changes which have taken place over the past decade, without doubt there has been a very substantial increase in global cooperation in science and technology. This is at its most unambiguous in ‘bottom-up’ individual cooperation between scientists but the indications are that more formalised institutional arrangements are beginning to catch-up. The implication of the broad base for global cooperation is that the phenomenon extends well beyond the traditional big science areas of space and nuclear-related research. Nonetheless, big sci-

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ence appears poised to enter a global era, in part as a defensive strategy by those communities, not only to achieve the benefits of cost-sharing but also to lock-in governments to international commitments which are harder to shed than their domestic counterparts. Such a transformation carries its own risks as international competition in scientific achievement is sacrificed as a political rationale. This is partly being offset by a focus on the achievements of a particular country’s scientists ‘within’ an international facility—for example the UK’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council uses the number of British scientists achieving senior positions in CERN as a performance indicator sanctioned by the National Audit Office Ž1995.. In considering what has been driving the process of global cooperation several factors are likely to be relevant within the context of the motivations discussed in this paper. The preeminence and rapid progress of US science in key areas including biomedicine and electronics have made it imperative for other nations to keep as closely in touch as possible, while the competitive scientific environment in the USA creates an incentive for American scientists to seek advantage from the additional insights available from high quality collaborators elsewhere. The development of cooperation with Japan reflects its emergence as significant scientific player, reinforced by a strong policy of encouraging researcher mobility and cooperation. A similar pattern is developing for Korea. For Australasia and Canada a historical endowment of cooperative links is gradually being replaced by a more conventional set of motivations, with implications for the relative weight of bilateral relationships. The growing industrial relevance of much of the science involved in collaborations also significant. In an era of globalisation of industry it is likely that a nation’s science base will increasingly be seen as a competitive asset in attracting and retaining inward investment. Such rhetoric already enters the rationale for international cooperation funds. One might also speculate that inward investors bring with them networks in their own countries for which they act as a vector in linking to networks in the new country. At a policy level, important challenges are raised, not least for the operators of European programmes. Researchers are increasingly likely to demand access

to their counterparts in other continents. 6 In response there has been a progressive opening-up of the Framework Programme and more recently the EUREKA Initiative. What is not clear is whether global collaboration is additional to European collaboration or whether it is perceived as a substitute which ‘crowds out’ the scope for regional action. If strategic actions involving large firms are not to be lost to the European cause, an approach needs to be developed which supports a European platform within global alliances, taking the example of the IMS initiative. Handled well, an extension to global cooperation provides a means to inject new life into existing collaborative frameworks which are at best asymptotic in the growth of the benefits they now offer. Europe enters such collaborations with certain advantages, not least among which is a widely-diffused and well-developed skill in the practice and management of international collaboration derived from decades of experience. For some of the other industrialised countries without the benefit of a natural region well-populated with scientific equals, Europe offers an attractive option for collaboration. For Japan, Korea and Canada it is a useful counterweight to collaboration with the USA, though Australia and perhaps New Zealand apply this argument in reverse. While global collaboration does not offer the additional benefit of building a European scientific community, it is not unreasonable to argue that this goal has been largely achieved and that maintenance requires less effort than the original construction. The first step has already been taken with the partial opening of the Framework Programme and Eureka Initiative to participation by non-European countries with appropriate agreements. The next step is an altered mindset which sees cooperation as a means of gaining absolute rather than relative advantage, that is to say that raising the quality of work done with at least partial European participation is the key criterion. The case for a closed programme collapses

6 In the UK Technology Foresight Programme Delphi Survey ŽLoveridge et al., 1996. respondents rated high technology areas such as IT and life sciences being more suitable for global than for European collaboration, leaving for the latter defence and aerospace and transport.

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in the face of the freedom of its beneficiaries to collaborate in parallel with whoever they choose. As a final point, the limits to the growth of global cooperation in science and technology should also be considered. It should always be remembered that all international cooperation rests upon a much larger base of domestic activity. Given the costs of cooperation Žand the existence of a considerable amount of research for which no cooperation is necessary. there is only so much which a given national base can support, particularly as cooperation funds are largely for incremental costs only. Beyond these practical considerations, so long as the nation-state is a competitive unit, it is likely that international cooperation will be seen as a means of enhancing the position of national science base rather than replacing it. Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the support of several agencies over the years in assembling the data and ideas for this paper, including the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission, the EUREKA Secretariat and STOA. The bibliometric data upon which Tables 1–3 are based was compiled by the RASCI team under the direction of Wolfgang Glaenzel. Maria Nedeva made helpful comments upon an earlier draft. The author takes full responsibility for any remaining errors. References Advisory Council on Science and Technology, 1997. Overview of Canadian International S&T Cooperation Ždraft report., Ottawa. Anglo-Australian Observatory, 1994. Annual Report 1993–94, Anglo-Australian Telescope Board, Epping, NSW. ARArPREST, 1996a. Summary Report: Evaluation of the Human Frontier Science Program, Strasbourg: International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, pp. 3–12. ARArPREST, 1996b. Summary Report: Evaluation of the Human Frontier Science Program, Strasbourg: International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, pp. 3–10. Barker, K., 1995. The Implications of hosting international scientific facilities in OECD. Megascience Policy Issues, OECD, Paris. Barker, B., 1996. Japan: A Science Profile. British Council, London.

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