Determining the dynamics of collaboration in EU Framework Programmes under a network perspective

Collaborative networks gained attention in the field of economics of innovation in the recent past. One of the main interests concerns the temporal analysis of such networks, both in a scientific and in a European policy context. At the European level indeed, the objective is to promote strong and durable partnerships among research institutions and with industry, going beyond the usual project-based cooperation. The purpose of this study is to investigate these long-lasting collaborative relationships between the organizations that received funds by all the first eight European Framework Programmes (EU FPs). EU FPs are multi-annual programmes providing funds mainly to EU member states, but also to associate countries, in order to promote long-term investments in several areas. Considering participations in European projects funded by all the first eight EU FPs gives us the possibility to analyze the dynamics of collaborations in the context of European research projects over a long-time span. In more detail, we adopt a novel approach to model the dynamics of participation in EU FPs by means of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and statistics tools. The main objective is to estimate the probabilities of moving from one position to another - in terms of centrality measures - across different FPs, and to understand if the position within subsequent collaborative research networks is affected by a certain path dependency. Our results confirm the existence of a path dependency, in the sense that participating in previous FPs provides a competitive advantage to organizations due to several network benefits, such as growing experience, competencies, and popularity. Phenomena of "preferential attachment" are also evident. Finally, we find that the estimated probability transition matrices are able to highlight relevant events that affected the European Union and its strategies in the field of research, which are the Treaty of Maastricht and the adoption of the European Research Area (ERA).