Inter-country technological linkages in European Framework Programmes: a spur to European integration?

The paper alludes an enhanced interpretation to the 'cohesion' objective of the European Union and addresses the question of whether the European Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development have prompted the intermingling of research teams from countries in a way that abolishes the traditional boundaries between the more advantaged European north and the less advantaged south. Drawing upon a unique database of 9,335 collaborative research ventures covering 64 major programmes over a 15-year period (1984-1998), the paper presents the linkages established among different actors (firms, Universities, and Research Institutes) and seeks to identify the existence of a systematic pattern in the formation of the collaborative consortia at the national level. The analysis unveils a picture of significant collaborative activity among clusters of neighbouring countries that are found in a similar state of economic and technological development and observes that actors from neighbouring countries tend to collaborate more often.