The spiky world of innovation at science parks

Abstract

This research is about the impact of science parks in the Netherlands on innovation within municipalities and neighbouring municipalities. Science parks are geographically bounded places that seek to facilitate collaboration between businesses, universities, higher education institutes and research organisations with innovation as the main goal. There is a high activity of innovation at science parks, which pulls the interest of policy makers to form such parks in order to stimulate the innovation within the region. While innovation is sticky, knowledge can travel through space with some aspects making the transfer of knowledge easier for instance, via face-to-face contacts or having the same type of technology. These knowledge spillovers can contribute to the process that the region benefits from the existence of a science park in terms of innovation. This research tries to unfold the relation by looking at the number of science parks in a municipality, the type of science park and if geographic proximity to a science park plays a role in the levels of patenting within a municipality and neighbouring municipalities.