Social Network Analysis

Social Network Analysis report    [download]

The CENTROPE R&D Cooperation Network - A Social Network Analysis by ÖAR-Regionalberatung GmbH

in cooperation with CONVELOP cooperative knowledge design gmbh  

Summary

Considering the size of CENTROPE, the region is very well positioned within the European cooperation landscape. In every third project (459 projects) of FP 7 “Cooperation” program (1.563 projects) at least one CENTROPE organisation was involved. 276 actors are implementing the projects jointly with 3.134 partners from 85 different nations. Companies are represented most frequently (55%), followed by research organisations (39%).

The CENTROPE region is already showing a remarkable number of internal R&D cooperations. However, the bulk of CENTROPE’s R&D cooperations are oriented towards Western European Countries. Germany is the most important external cooperation partner for CENTROPE, followed by France, the UK and Italy. Surprisingly the new EU-member states are involved not more than non-EU members.

Within the CENTROPE region an R&D-network has emerged. The majority of R&D organisations (132 of 276 actors) are connected among each other in one single component. There are central organisations in each CENTROPE sub-region acting as hubs: Technical University Vienna, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungarian Academy of Science or the Slovak Academy of Science. They connect a large number of actors and are well connected among each other. They represent the backbone of the network.

That connectivity allows the actors to gain fast access to a large pool of knowledge existing within the region, beyond the resources provided by their direct partners and it makes the regional network more effective, synergies become more likely. In addition it became evident that the cooperation patterns inside CENTROPE are to some extent more routine. Cooperations based on only one project are less frequent than in the overall network.

The research organisations constitute the spine of the regions R&D network. They maintain the most cooperations within CENTROPE and they are well connected among each other. They also fulfil their hub-functions for the CENTROPE-innovation system. Therefore companies are mainly allocated around those hubs. They integrate the companies which are rather located at the periphery of the network.

On the other side there is a remarkable number of “isolated organisations”: 85 organisations - two thirds of which are companies - are cooperating exclusively with partners from outside the CENTROPE-region. They are not connected to the regions network and consequently their know-how and expertise is not directly available to the regions R&D system[1].

The majority of the 276 CENTROPE organisations involved within the R&D projects are located within the Austrian part of the region (124), followed by Hungarian organisations (77), Czech organisations (50) and organisation from Slovakia (25). In 74% of all cross-border relations within CENTROPE region Austrian actors are involved. This suggests that Austrian organisations play a vital role in trans-national research activities in CENTROPE.

With regard to the thematic focus of R&D-cooperation, ICT and HEALTH are most important fields in the cooperation programme of FP 7 in absolute figures. A relative “specialisation” of the CENTROPE region – i.e. shares above EU-average – exists most notably in ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT and SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES. 

• ICT is by far the largest network concerning projects and involved actors (1013 organisations) and it is well connected. 99% of all actors are (at least indirectly) linked together, 97% are even connected via two separate paths, which is an indicator for a robust network. Nevertheless, the density of the network is below average (due to its size).
• The ENVIRONMENT network, as mentioned above, shows the highest relative participation of CENTROPE actors compared to the total FP7 programme. Concerning structural indicators it shows average values.
• The SECURITY network shows a much more vulnerable structure. 86% of all organisations are connected within the “main body” of the network and 52 % via two separate paths. There are seven organisations acting as “articulation points” which connect the structure and can control the flow of information within the network.

When breaking down the internal CENTROPE cooperation network into thematic areas, the network structure gets disintegrated. Whereas in ICT a network could be identified, the cooperation between CENTROPE actors within the other thematic areas is rather structured around smaller components and isolated project groups. In ICT it’s the Technical Universities of Vienna and Budapest, the Austrian Institute of Technology and the Centre for Usability Research and Engineering (CURE) that hold together the network. The ENERGY and TRANSPORT network show the highest number of isolates, i.e. organisations cooperating solely outside of the CENTROPE region. In both cases the proportion is 48%, counting 14 organisations in ENERGY and 22 in TRANSPORT.

Some conclusions for the R&D-network development

• Focusing efforts on the growth of the network’s “main body”: This can be achieved by specific efforts addressing the “isolated actors”, which are mainly companies. Thus, these companies on the one hand would serve as gateways to new knowledge bases outside the region. On the other hand the R&D-industry links within the region could be reinforced.
• Increase the “sustainability” of R&D networks in particular by focusing on those “articulation points” which are vital for the “connectivity” in the various (thematic) networks. ICT, Environment and Transport seem to be the most promising thematic networks.
• Although the main objective is to intensify the R&D-cooperation among the CENTROPE R&D-organisations and between R&D-organisations and companies one should not forget the vital role of large R&D-centres across Europe (and therefore outside CENTROPE) which also often act as a hub for CENTROPE organisations.

CENTROPE R&D – The network inside the region

The leading question was, whether R&D cooperations among actors from the CENTROPE region are established to an extent to which one can discover a cooperation structure worth to be labelled as a network, or if R&D collaboration inside the region is rather based on isolated, mostly bilateral project groups.

The Figure 4 depicts the R&D cooperations inside the CENTROPE region. Graphical characteristics correspond to the network-graphs above, but the colour of the nodes represents the various nationalities of the organisations (orange=Austria, green=Czech Republic, light blue=Hungary and grey=Slovakia). 

The most central actors are the same as within the overall network, with the exception that the Slovak Academy of Sciences plays a vital role inside CENTROPE, but looses centrality when external cooperations are considered.

The morphology of the cooperation structure illustrates that a network has already emerged. Even though some minor project groups and clusters exist, the majority of R&D organisations are connected in one single component comprising 132 actors, which is almost the half of all involved organisations. The central organisations such as the Technical University Vienna or the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (see table above) are the hubs within the network. They connect a large number of actors and are well connected among each other. They represent the backbone of the network. That connectivity allows the actors to gain fast access to a large pool of knowledge existing within the region, beyond the resources provided by their direct partners. Since information travels through contacts, a focal actor also benefits from its partners contacts. Indirect ties have also the benefit that they entail low or no maintenance costs. From a macro point of view, this connectivity makes the regional network more effective, synergies become more likely and parallelism less likely.

Some organisations exhibit a crucial role for the connectivity since their removal would cause the network to fall apart in disconnected fragments. These are mainly the Technical University of Vienna, the Technical University of Budapest and the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU). Even though the BOKU does not belong to the most active players, it holds a crucial structural position.

On the other side, 85 organisations (i.e. 30%) located in CENTROPE are cooperating exclusively with partners from outside the region (not visualised). Most of them are companies (67%). They are not connected to the regions network, causing that their know-how and expertise is not directly available to the regions R&D system [1]. This calls for specific efforts in order to include these actors, since they would also serve as gateways to new knowledge bases outside the region.