DAT The Rise of International Co-Invention: A New Phase in the Globalization of R&D

创新的地理位置正在发生变化，中国、印度和东欧等地区的新兴经济体将在全球创新体系中发挥越来越重要的作用。 虽然这一转变目前还处于早期阶段，但其现实正日益为经济学家、企业研发经理和政策制定者所接受。 这一转变引发了深刻的科学问题和重大的政策问题。 标准理论认为，前沿技术创新能力的出现是通常持续数十年的发展进程的最后阶段之一。 中国，特别是印度，仍处于这一传统发展进程的早期阶段，但他们已经拥有了由世界赞助的研发中心？技术精英企业。 传统的理解已经过时了吗？ 跟踪美国和欧洲专利机构授予新兴经济体发明者的专利，为衡量研发向这些地区转移提供了一种有用的方法。 对这些专利的调查突出了一种现象的重要性，这种现象可能部分解释了这种转变。 这些专利中有很大一部分是国际共同发明的，而且比例还在不断增长。也就是说，不同国家的研究人员团队将他们的技能和知识结合起来，产生专利发明。对共同发明专利的分析表明，研发过程可以越来越多地分解为多个阶段，然后每个阶段都位于可以以最低成本进行的地方。 该项目结合了定量和定性技术，以评估国际研发分工的出现程度，发展中国家和发达国家都可以从中受益。 该项目还衡量了国际共同发明在多大程度上推动了新兴地区研究活动的数量和质量的增长。 更广泛的影响：对美国技术领导地位的影响。创新地理的转变将对美国产生重大影响，因为美国经济的繁荣主要建立在技术活力之上。 美国的技术领先地位是否受到这些发展的威胁？ 适当的政策反应是什么？ 对国际共同发明的作用的探讨有助于阐明这些问题。 由于新兴经济体的发明增长严重依赖于西方公司的研究投入，因此它对发达工业国家经济福利的直接威胁比想象的要小。 事实上，通过提高研发过程的效率，并允许企业探索更多的技术机会与一定水平的支出，国际共同发明可以产生净积极影响美国的经济增长，并最终加强美国的技术领先地位，而不是破坏它。与共同发明现象及其影响的调查相关的见解也将有助于研究经理考虑和利用这种方法来提高他们的研发生产力，和经济影响。

The geography of innovation is shifting, and emerging economies in areas like China, India, and Eastern Europe are poised to play an increasingly important role in the global innovation system. While this shift is currently at an early stage, its reality is increasingly accepted by economists, corporate R&D managers, and policymakers. The shift has raised profound scientific questions as well as significant policy concerns. Standard theories view the emergence of innovative capacity in frontier technologies as one of the final stages in a development process that usually stretches over decades. China and, especially, India are still in the early stages of this conventional development process, yet they are already hosting R&D centers sponsored by the world?s technologically elite firms. Is the conventional understanding now obsolete? Tracking patents granted by the patent agencies of the United States and Europe to inventors based in emerging economies provides a useful way of measuring the shift in R&D to these regions. Investigation of these patents highlights the importance of a phenomenon that may partially explain this shift. A large and growing fraction of these patents result from international coinvention ? that is, teams of researchers based in different countries combining their skills and knowledge to generate patented inventions. Analysis of coinvented patents suggests the R&D process can increasingly be disaggregated into multiple stages, which are then each located where they can be undertaken at lowest cost. This project combines quantitative and qualitative techniques to assess the degree to which an international division of R&D labor is emerging, from which both developing and developed nations can benefit. The project also measures the degree to which international coinvention has driven growth in the quantity and quality of research activity in emerging regions. Broader Impacts: Implications for U.S. Technological Leadership. The shift in the geography of innovation will have significant implications for the United States, an economy whose prosperity is largely built on its technological dynamism. Is American technological leadership threatened by these developments? What are the appropriate policy responses? Exploration of the role of international coinvention sheds useful light on these issues. Because growth in invention in emerging economies has been heavily reliant on research inputs from Western firms, it poses less of a direct threat to the economic welfare of advanced industrial countries than has been supposed. In fact, by improving the efficiency of the R&D process and allowing firms to explore more technological opportunities with a given level of expenditure, international coinvention can generate net positive effects on U.S. economic growth and end up reinforcing American technological leadership rather than undermining it. The insights associated with the investigation of the coinvention phenomenon and its impacts will also help research managers consider and leverage this approach towards improving their R&D productivity, and economic impact.