Does intentional mean hierarchical? Peering inside the black box of joint research networks

The production of scientific and technical knowledge is mostly concentrated in specific locations (high-tech clusters, innovative industrial agglomerations, excellence centres, technologically advanced regions). Knowledge flows very easily within regions; however, scientific and technical knowledge does flow also between different regions. Aim of this paper is to analyse how knowledge flows between these agglomerations of innovative inputs, and what are the effects of such flows on the innovative performance - measured by patent application intensity - of regions. To achieve this aim, we estimate a regional knowledge production function and we test, through appropriate spatial econometric estimation techniques, the effect of both geographical and relational autocorrelation (as measured by participation to joint research networks funded by the EU through the Fifth Framework Programme"). Furthermore we model the unobservable structure and link-value of actual knowledge flows within these joint research networks. Our research methodology shows that knowledge flows within inter-regional research networks along a non-symmetrical and hierarchical structure in which knowledge produced by network participants tend to be exploited by the coordinator.