WIPO reveals 30 most-prolific collaboration hotspots for inventors
Collaborative and transnational innovation is growing, but only in a few large clusters in a small number of countries, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO).
In its 2019 report, Local Hotspots, Global Networks: Innovative Activity Is Increasingly Collaborative and International, WIPO found that in the early 2000s, teams of scientists produced 64% of all scientific papers and teams of inventors were behind 54% of patents. By 2010, these figures had risen to 88% and 68%, respectively.
Released yesterday, November 12, the report found that approximately 30 metropolitan hotspots accounted for 69% of patents and 48% of scientific activity during the years 2015-2017.
These hotspots are mostly located in five countries: China, Germany, Japan, the US and the Republic of Korea and account for 26% of all international collaborations and co-inventions.
The report, which analysed millions of patent and scientific publication records, also found that collaboration has become more international. The percentage of scientific collaborations with two or more researchers located in different countries rose from 15% in 1998 to 26% in 2017.
Additionally, the report found that most collaborations involve the US and Western European countries. Although there have been some new entrants to the collaboration networks, such as India, Australia and Brazil, these still mainly collaborate with western economies rather than with each other.
The report said that while most of the collaboration happens among inventors and researchers from these countries. New entrants to these collaboration networks, from countries such as China, India, Australia and Brazil, still mostly collaborate with those economies rather than with each other.
The hotspots in the US, namely San Francisco, New York City and Boston, emerge as the most connected ones in the world, WIPO said.
Francis Gurry, WIPO’s director, said today’s innovation landscape is “highly globally interlinked”.
“Increasingly complex technological solutions for shared global challenges need ever larger and more-specialised teams of researchers, which rely on international collaboration.
“It is imperative that economies remain open in the pursuit of innovation,” he added.
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