Research networks and urban dynamics in Europe

Marie-Noelle Comin

29 avril 2010

Slides

Cities concentrate economic activities, information, power and people in both quantitative and qualitative ways. Cities are also nodes of networks of complex interconnection. In Europe, the construction of a large supranational entity results spatially in the multiplication and the intensification of the relations between politically unified countries. The majority of these relations pass through cities. Then very complex links underpin the European system of cities and understanding them is critical to understanding the interdependencies in the system. In this talk, the interconnection of the European national urban systems is studied by analysing knowledge spillovers which flow between the European cities. Knowledge spillovers are considered as an input and also an output of the innovation process. For the analysis, I consider networks created by collaborative research in European funded research and technology development projects dedicated to converging technologies. Data come from the EC database CORDIS RTD-PROJECTS drawn from the 2nd to the 6th European Framework Programmes (1986 to 2006). Cities concentrate economic activities, information, power and people in both quantitative and qualitative ways. Cities are also nodes of networks of complex interconnection. In Europe, the construction of a large supranational entity results spatially in the multiplication and the intensification of the relations between politically unified countries. The majority of these relations pass through cities. Then very complex links underpin the European system of cities and understanding them is critical to understanding the interdependencies in the system. In this talk, the interconnection of the European national urban systems is studied by analysing knowledge spillovers which flow between the European cities. Knowledge spillovers are considered as an input and also an output of the innovation process. For the analysis, I consider networks created by collaborative research in European funded research and technology development projects dedicated to converging technologies. Data come from the EC database CORDIS RTD-PROJECTS drawn from the 2nd to the 6th European Framework Programmes (1986 to 2006).