It Takes More than a Bridge to Make a Region The Øresund Contracts as Instruments for Cross- Border R&D Cooperation Isabelle Collins and Erik Arnold AEA Toronto October 2005

Background The Øresund link connects Denmark and Sweden across the entrance to the Baltic Sea

After years of environmental opposition, the two governments decided that the opening of the link in 2000 should be celebrated by 10 cross- border cultural events The Øresund Contracts were one of these - intended to bring together the innovation systems of the Copenhagen and Skåne regions Background

Common Innovation Systems perspective on R&D policy

Policymakers have responded by using more complex measures Multiple Single MultipleSingle Development measuresMAPs and network measures Activity promotion or subsidy measures Linkage or ‘bridging’ measures Measures Actors

Tackling both market and systems failures Multiple Single MultipleSingle Intra-organisational learning, capability development and performance improvement System strengthening Within actors Between actors Reducing bottlenecks Point or step change in organisational performance Inter-organisational learning, network development and strengthening Measures Actors

Under political pressure to move quickly, policymakers seized on the Danish Centre Contracts model Centre Contracts Programme Logic Group of SMEs identifies a common problem A GTS* institute offers to exploit the solution University and institute do research to find a generic solution under a Centre Contract Problem solved! Re-exploitable intellectual capital provides spillovers New knowledge University provides research capability

.. and simply added a regional, cross-border dimension, with each project to have a full set of stakeholders on each side of the Øresund Increased critical mass and adequacy of regional knowledge infrastructure Increased competitiveness of the Öresund economy Increased integration of the Öresund region Overall Objectives Increase innovation in companies Obtain externalities through re- use of intellectual capital R&D results meeting company innovation needs New intellectual capital for the research institutes Increased knowledge and innovation networking New knowledge Öresund contracts: joint R&D projects Goals Results Activities

We used multiple methods to tackle the evaluation Telephone survey Group interviews Document analysis Peer review Instrument portfolio analysis Initial findings Final report Stakeholder reference group

Participant perspective Increased cross-border networking - especially extending established networks, as the contracts were launched too quickly to establish new ones Provided a unique source of cross-border funding Allowed networks with clear objectives to make technological progress, largely developing instrumentalities and other ‘intermediate’ research results rather than products or processes Rigid rules requiring reciprocity across the Øresund made networks hard to construct and sometimes too big to be inclusive No cultural or language obstacles to cross- border cooperation

Instrument perspective Network innovation instruments have strong theoretical justification The cross-border implementation created unwieldy, inefficient networks Swedish institutes were barely present in Skåne, so their participation was difficult Universities play different roles in Sweden and Denmark Lack of an equivalent to GTS in Sweden meant spillovers were hard to capture

Regional innovation system perspective Integration of the Copenhagen and Skåne regions should strengthen both and is an established policy objective in both countries The regions share a strong food and pharma focus However, there are few cross-border institutions and those that exist are weak Regional governance differs strongly between across the sound Øresund contracts were ‘parachuted’ in from the national level, bypassing both the regional networks and regional authorities The programme clearly caused additional activity - but with only 6 projects and a 3-year horizon, few noticed the splash

Conclusion mechanism + context = impact (Pawson and Tilly)

A bridge too far?

Contacts