  The last few years have witnessed an increasing interest in the geography of
innovation. As noted by Autant-Bernard et al. (2007a), the geographical
dimension of innovation deserves further attention by analysing such phenomena
as R&D collaborations. In this study we focus on cross-region R&D
collaborations in Europe. The European coverage is achieved by using data on
collaborative R&D projects funded by the EU Framework Programmes (FPs) between
organisation that are located in 255 NUTS-2 regions of the 25 pre-2007 EU
member-states, as well as Norway and Switzerland. The objective is to identify
separation effects - such as geographical or technological effects - on the
constitution of cross-region collaborative R&D activities. We specify a Poisson
spatial interaction model to analyse these questions. The dependent variable is
the intensity of cross-region R&D collaborations, the independent variables
include origin, destination and separation characteristics of interaction. The
results provide striking evidence that geographical effects play an important
role in determining R&D collaborations across Europe. Geographical proximity
and co-localisation of organisations in neighbouring regions are important
determinants of cross-region collaboration intensities. The effect of
technological proximity is stronger than spatial effects. R&D collaborations
occur most often between organisations that are located close to each other in
technological space. R&D collaborations in Europe are also affected by
language- and country border effects, but these are smaller than geographical
and technological effects.
