How do firms perceive policy rationales behind the variety of instruments supporting collaborative R&D? Lessons from the European Framework Programs

• A conceptual framework allows to study rationales of policy fostering R&D cooperation.
• EU FP instruments are thus analyzed and compared to firms supposed needs for them.
• Survey on FP detail motivations of supported firms and features of projects submitted.
• Firms׳ actual motivations as well as projects only vary a few across instruments.
• There is a limited need for a set of complex instruments or for new ones in each FP.

The main objective of the paper is to analyze to which extent participation in public programs supporting collaborative R&D meets the goals pursued by policy makers when setting up such instruments. Theoretically, these policy instruments are designed to overcome a set of failures (market and systemic failures) impeding the innovation process. We use as an example in the empirical part the European Framework Programs (FP) 5 and 6, which include a large and representative range of instruments. Each of these FP instruments is characterized according to the set of failures it is supposed to solve, its objectives and characteristics, and we discuss how these aspects are perceived and exploited by participating companies. Using data collected in the Innoimpact survey, involving thousands of FP5 and FP6 project participants, we compare the motivations of firms in choosing these instruments with our theoretical predictions. We find that the motivation to participate in a FP project does not differ greatly from one instrument to the other and the characteristics of the projects do not exhibit major differences. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations.