Role of public research institutes in national innovation systems in industrialized countries: The cases of Fraunhofer, NIST, CSIRO, AIST, and ITRI

Public Research Institutes (PRIs) were established for many reasons, such as to promote defence related research and health related research. Helping domestic industries remains one of the important missions for public research institutes even when the countries have industrialized and firms' technological capabilities are high. PRIs aim to upgrade existing industries, especially SMEs, as well as spearheading new ones. They can conduct research to solve today's problems of existing industries and those of next generation technologies which might lead to creation of new industries. Moreover, relationship between PRIs and firms and non-firm actors like universities became more intense, open, horizontal, international, and longer term. To reduce risk and uncertainty inherent in research mentioned above, intermediary roles of PRIs are increasingly important. The emphasis and the ways PRIs help industry change over time and vary across countries as they are integral part of national innovation systems. This makes generalization difficult, but the experiences of five leading PRIs in Germany, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and the US shows that, the balances between contract research vs. longer term research with own initiative, mobility of researchers vs. retaining core researchers, and competitive grants and funds from industry vs. block grants from government are important to keep PRIs relevant to industry needs and maintain research standards. The governance of PRIs is of particular importance to maintain proper balances.