The Research Network

and the New Economics of Science:

From Metaphors

to Organizational Behaviours

Paul A. David

All Souls College, Oxford & Stanford University

Dominique Foray

IMRI, IRIS-TS, University of Paris-Dauphine & CNRS

W. Edward Steinmueller

Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex

First draft: 15 July 1997

Second draft: 12 September 1997

Final version: 3 October 1997

This paper has been prepared for publication in the forthcoming volume The Organization of Innovative Activities in Europe, edited by Alfonso Gambardella and Franco Malerba, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 1998.

Acknowledgements

The authors have benefitted from the stimulating comments offered by the participants at the conference 'New Research Findings: The Economics of Scientific and Technological Research in Europe', held at the University of Urbino, 24-25 February 1995. They are grateful for the patient encouragement displayed by Alfonso Gambardella and Franco Malerba, in their capacity as editors of the conference volume. Special acknowledgement is due to A. Geuna, for his help in the preparation of the authors' draft research proposal 'TESTRS: Transforming the European science and technology research system' (MERIT, University of Limburg, Maastricht, Spring 1995), from which we have here drawn previously unpublished material.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction: the progress of scientific knowledge and economic growth

2. The 'new economics of science' -- a conceptual approach and some hypotheses

3. The 'network' metaphor and its wonderful career

4. Network Competition and Cooperation in the European Science System:

  A Future Research Agenda for the New Economics of Science

4.1: The Economics of Network Formation and Development

4.2: The Matthew Effect and Mechanisms of Cumulative Advantage

4.3: National and Trans-National Funding of Scientific Research Networks

4.4: Bridging Scientific Networks

5. Science Policy and the Limitations of Metaphor

References and notes