The Øresund Contracts: Fostering Cross-Border R&D Cooperation

1. It Takes More than a Bridge to Make a RegionThe Øresund Contracts as Instruments for Cross-Border R&D Cooperation Isabelle Collins and Erik Arnold AEA Toronto October 2005

2. Background • The Øresund link connects Denmark and Sweden across the entrance to the Baltic Sea

3. Background • After years of environmental opposition, the two governments decided that the opening of the link in 2000 should be celebrated by 10 cross- border cultural events • The Øresund Contracts were one of these - intended to bring together the innovation systems of the Copenhagen and Skåne regions

4. Common Innovation Systems perspective on R&D policy

5. Measures Development measures MAPs and network measures Multiple Activity promotion or subsidy measures Linkage or ‘bridging’ measures Single Actors Single Multiple Policymakers have responded by using more complex measures

6. Tackling both market and systems failures Measures Intra-organisational learning, capability development and performance improvement • System strengthening • Within actors • Between actors • Reducing bottlenecks Multiple Inter-organisational learning, network development and strengthening Point or step change in organisational performance Single Actors Single Multiple

7. Group of SMEs identifies a common problem Problem solved! University and institute do research to find a generic solution under a Centre Contract New knowledge Re-exploitable intellectual capital provides spillovers A GTS* institute offers to exploit the solution Under political pressure to move quickly, policymakers seized on the Danish Centre Contracts model Centre Contracts Programme Logic University provides research capability

8. Overall Objectives Increased competitiveness of the Öresund economy Increased integration of the Öresund region Increase innovation in companies Obtain externalities through re-use of intellectual capital Increased critical mass and adequacy of regional knowledge infrastructure Goals R&D results meeting company innovation needs New intellectual capital for the research institutes Increased knowledge and innovation networking New knowledge Results Öresund contracts: joint R&D projects Activities .. and simply added a regional, cross-border dimension, with each project to have a full set of stakeholders on each side of the Øresund

9. Stakeholder reference group Final report Initial findings We used multiple methods to tackle the evaluation Group interviews Telephone survey Document analysis Instrument portfolio analysis Peer review

10. Participant perspective • Increased cross-border networking - especially extending established networks, as the contracts were launched too quickly to establish new ones • Provided a unique source of cross-border funding • Allowed networks with clear objectives to make technological progress, largely developing instrumentalities and other ‘intermediate’ research results rather than products or processes • Rigid rules requiring reciprocity across the Øresund made networks hard to construct and sometimes too big to be inclusive • No cultural or language obstacles to cross-border cooperation

11. Instrument perspective • Network innovation instruments have strong theoretical justification • The cross-border implementation created unwieldy, inefficient networks • Swedish institutes were barely present in Skåne, so their participation was difficult • Universities play different roles in Sweden and Denmark • Lack of an equivalent to GTS in Sweden meant spillovers were hard to capture

12. Regional innovation system perspective • Integration of the Copenhagen and Skåne regions should strengthen both and is an established policy objective in both countries • The regions share a strong food and pharma focus • However, there are few cross-border institutions and those that exist are weak • Regional governance differs strongly between across the sound • Øresund contracts were ‘parachuted’ in from the national level, bypassing both the regional networks and regional authorities • The programme clearly caused additional activity - but with only 6 projects and a 3-year horizon, few noticed the splash

13. Conclusion mechanism + context = impact (Pawson and Tilly)

14. A bridge too far?

15. Contacts isabelle.collins@technopolis-group.com erik.arnold@technopolis-group.com www.technopolis-group.com