The Impact of EU Framework Projects on Competitiveness 1

The European Union, as well as national, regional, and even local government organizations across Europe, is promoting research and development collaborations as efficient and effective vehicles to turn ideas into new products, services, and solutions in order to improve competitiveness. One of the largest programs is the European Community Framework Programme 6 (FP6) for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (RTD).This research in progress paper develops two research questions in order to guide our investigation of the impact of FP6 on European competitiveness: 1) How does the structural, relational, and cognitive embeddedness of publicly-funded R&D collaborations impact knowledge exchange and creation in the collaboration? and 2) How does participation in a publicly funded R&D collaboration impact a member firm's capability development? In addition we present some information on the empirical setting and data collection for this research.