‘capabilities’ perspective as outlined in Section 1 of this paper, that the better
networking for purposes of knowledge exploration and support for knowledge
exploitation displayed by US research institutes is a sign of superior institutional
capability. Given their role as key intermediaries in the knowledge management
process, the institutional capability in the US Biosciences Innovation System, adds
significant value to an already doubly advantaged initial research resource base.
It can be further shown, as Owen-Smith et al. (2001) go on to do, that US networks
among PROs are hierarchically structured. Over the period from 1988-1998, the
Boston cluster has remained at the peak of US interorganisational research linkages,
and its connections to other clusters has doubled to over 50% of its total contacts over
the period. San Diego has moved to second place in the hierarchy over San Francisco,
while Seattle and New York have exchanged positions, Seattle rising above New
York in terms of the number and strength of its inter-regional PRO linkages. Thus
relationships between PROs and firms in their clusters are augmented by the
institutional capabilities of both to benefit from spanning therapeutic areas, engaging
in multiple stages of the knowledge exploitation value chain, and involving diverse
collaboration. The institutional system takes on certain characteristics that have
resulted in the term ‘collaboratory’ being used to describe such interorganisational
networking. As has been suggested, European DBFs and PROs have tended to engage
in more attenuated innovation networks, with more specialised than diverse
interactions, and a more limited external value chain involvement that is also mostly
national in character.
The weaknesses of European international networks of PROs and DBFs can be
understood in terms of the relative immaturity of regional science infrastructures. This
in turn, echoes the relatively small budgets that have traditionally been available for
systemic medical, health and life sciences research integration. This is changing
rapidly in some European countries, and has been rather better developed in some
smaller EU economies for some time. Thus Germany and France have changed
business regulations to encourage innovation and academic entrepreneurship, while a
long period of under funding in the UK health service has been reversed both in
service delivery budgets and scientific research budgets. In the UK, the world’s
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