Co-operation and Collaboration in Europe: The Role of Sub Regional Collaborative Networks in Constructing the European Research Area

Abstract

"The construction of the European Research Area (ERA) needs, among other things, a clear view on the distribution of the scientific activities throughout the continent. A bibliometric study of the Observatoire des Sciences et des techniques in Paris made by the end of the nineties has shown that one-third of the research was concentrated within only four regions of the European Union (EU): lIle de France, Baden-Würtemberg, Bavaria and Greater London. Sixty-eight regions out of the total of 445 regions in EU shelter 27% of the population but account for some 36% of the total gross national products and 57% of the scientific production in Europe! At the other end of the scale are seventy- two peripheral regions, representing 11% of the population, but responsible for only 0.3% of the technological production and 7% of the GDP. The picture comes out rather similar from the last comprehensive statistical study of the European Commission.3 Obviously, it will not become less heterogeneous, if the mapping is extended to: 1/ the ten countries integrating the Union in May 2004, 2/ the three candidates for 2007 and their neighbours in Southeast Europe, and 3/ further to East to the republics of the Commonwealth of the Newly Independent States."