The German Research Foundation (DFG) will fund the interdisciplinary research project “Mission Orientation and Innovation Clusters” led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Wurster (Professorship for Policy Analysis) and Prof. Dr. Hanna Hottenrott(Professorship for Economics of Innovation) for three years. 
 

Project Description

Technological progress is a key driver of a country's economic development. In a world of globalized division of labor, successful research nations hold spatial and sectoral technology clusters to gain competitive advantages. Prominent examples, such as Silicon Valley, Silicon Wadi, or CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), show that public engagement is likely to play a crucial role in initiating and sustaining such clusters. The concept of the Entrepreneurial State emphasizes the role of public technology missions in fostering the success of innovation clusters and technology leadership.

The project aims to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between the establishment and perpetuation of innovation clusters and a country's mission orientation. While in some cases and under certain conditions, national missions may lead to the formation of innovation clusters, such initiatives may also fail. The objective of this research project is therefore to identify the conditions under which national mission orientation, innovation clustering, and technology leadership co-occur. Within this research focus, the project will shed light on the persistence of technology leadership profiles over time and how far they can be traced back to national mission orientation. Moreover, it will investigate to what extent political institutions, actor constellations, and policy programs shape mission formation and the link between mission orientation and countries’ technology clusters. While a long-standing research tradition exists on mission orientation in innovation policy, the proposed aspects remain disconnected, and international comparative studies are lacking.

This project will therefore investigate the impact of the mission on innovation profiles and clusters at the national, subnational, and firm levels. It will utilize advanced geocoded patent indicators, as well as bibliometric analyses incorporating public funding information on research articles, to identify mission orientation and cluster performance at the national and regional levels. Comprehensive data will be collected and combined to describe political institutions, actor constellations, and policy programs. The country-level and regional-level analysis will comprise 47 countries and the time period from 1980 to 2020. The individual and firm-level analyses will focus on Germany. Utilizing qualitative and quantitative research methods, this project will provide novel insights into research on technology governance and innovation policy.