Towards a Taxonomy of Firms Engaged in International R&D Cooperation ProgramsThe Case of Spain in Eureka

Resumen

Innovation is a process that faces several "market failure" situations and for this reason - and for being considered one of the main drivers of economic growth throughout the world - a large number of governmental and supranational policies are designed to foster technological progress. In Europe this situation could not be any different and the "European Paradox" is used as the main argument for the implementation of innovation related initiatives. Along with these policies, there is an increasing concern with their continuous evaluation aiming at providing valuable feedback for these program´s adaptation and adequacy to the player´s needs. In this sense, this paper develops an evaluation of Eureka Programme´s impact for the case of Spanish companies participating in this initiative and that had projects finished in the period 2000-2005 (analysis performed through the information contained in Eureka´s Final Reports). A total of 77 firms were assessed through quantitative methods, namely correlations, chi-square tests, discriminant models and cluster analysis. Findings show that Spain participates in Eureka mainly through SMEs, and that the overall rate of technological achievements is impressively good. Commercial achievements seem to be influenced mainly by the quality of the project´s functioning and the capacity of firm´s exploiting results in the industry by the end of the project. A basic typology of participants is offered in which three clusters are built: (1) Risky Innovators; (2) Inventors; and (3) Consistent Innovators.