  This study compares the spatial characteristics of industrial R&D networks to
those of public research R&D networks (i.e. universities and research
organisations). The objective is to measure the impact of geographical
separation effects on the constitution of cross-region R&D collaborations for
both types of collaboration. We use data on joint research projects funded by
the 5th European Framework Programme (FP) to proxy cross-region collaborative
activities. The study area is composed of 255 NUTS-2 regions that cover the
EU-25 member states (excluding Malta and Cyprus) as well as Norway and
Switzerland. We adopt spatial interaction models to analyse how the variation
of cross-region industry and public research networks is affected by geography.
The results of the spatial analysis provide evidence that geographical factors
significantly affect patterns of industrial R&D collaboration, while in the
public research sector effects of geography are much smaller. However, the
results show that technological distance is the most important factor for both
industry and public research cooperative activities.

Physics and Society