Collaboration in technology programs

Innovation related activities are essential for the long-term performance of different types of organizations. Success in these activities is to increasingly lesser extent achieved by organizations working alone. Collaboration in innovation activities is often stimulated by the need of finding complementary resources essential for the activities, such as financial resources, research know-how and market knowledge. This thesis examines the project success, behavioural aspects and contribution of project international linkages in 208. publicly funded R&D projects. The studied projects belong to six different Tekes funded technology programs. The thesis employs two empirical research methods: the qualitative study with expert interviews and a quantitative study utilizing statistical methods for studying the project participant views of the project success. The results from the qualitative study served in providing the overall picture of the studied technology programs. Respondents found it quite hard to evaluate the project consortium's effect on the commercialization success. Technological success was easier to evaluate and knowledge producers' involvement was seen contributing on it. Based on the study results public research organizations are more likely to contribute to the direct economic success of R&D projects than universities. The finding is attributable to the research profiles of the two organizations. Public research organizations are conducting more applied research whereas universities have higher weight on basic research. Behavioural change is found to be strongest enhanced by collaboration between large firms and SMEs. The effect is clearly stronger compared to industry - research collaboration. In the studied programs the level of international collaboration was still very low. Partly due to this i.e. the little amount of data, the thesis is unable to attribute their effect reliably to the project success measures. Research on project international linkages should continue when more data is available