1TO WHAT EXTENT ARE BELGIAN UNIVERSITIES HIGHLY ENGAGED INTO EUROPEAN S&T NETWORKS?

This paper discusses the changing relationships between universities, industries and governments and the implications of universities in economic development. Thanks to several indicators, Belgian partnerships as well as Belgian university collaborations in European pre-competitive RDT projects are positioned relatively to other European countries. In particular, we appreciate to what extent Belgian universities are become aware of their role as active partner in economic development by examining their degree of involvement in near-the-market research consortia under the Eureka initiative. The paper concludes with some suggestions in order to reinforce the Belgian university contribution to the transformation of research output into additional economic and social welfare. On the whole, The Belgian participation to European R&D programmes is very high and largely influenced by geographic and cultural proximities. Yet, the weakness of intra-national collaboration links shows that the Belgian teams do not exploit their complementarities enough. Regarding EUREKA projects, the Flemish region is the main Belgian actor in the networks. Finally, the intensity of collaboration between universities and business enterprises shows some weaknesses. In order to better valorise the S&T potential of these pre-competitive and near the market joint research projects into economic terms, new policies in the S&T field could be implemented such as programmes aimed at deepening and completing the acquired knowledge with a special emphasis on downstream capabilities such as manufacturing and commercialisation capabilities