  This paper contributes to the literature on the impact of Big Science Centres
on technological innovation. We exploit a unique dataset with information on
CERN's procurement orders to study the collaborative innovation process between
CERN and its industrial partners. After a qualitative discussion of case
studies, survival and count data models are estimated; the impact of CERN
procurement on suppliers' innovation is captured by the number of patent
applications. The fact that firms in our sample received their first order over
a long time span (1995-2008) delivers a natural partition of industrial
partners into "suppliers" and "not yet suppliers". This allows estimating the
impact of CERN on the hazard to file a patent for the first time and on the
number of patent applications, as well as the time needed for these effects to
show up. We find that a "CERN effect" does exist: being an industrial partner
of CERN is associated with an increase in the hazard to file a patent for the
first time and in the number of patent applications. These effects require a
significant "gestation lag" in the range of five to eight years, pointing to a
relatively slow process of absorption of new ideas.
