A bibliometric analysis of Technology Centres

Technology Centres (TCs) are non-profit organisations created to contribute to the improvement of the productive sector, providing RTD support, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given TCs’ main function, most authors present an industrial perspective of their performance. However, the bibliometric techniques can offer not only an overview of these centres, but also additional information about their features: the evolution of their publications, the degree of national and international collaboration, the Spanish institutional sectors and the main disciplines involved, the regional differences and their connections. In this article, Spanish TCs’ documents downloaded from the Web of Science (2008–2012) are analysed, along with other indicators that can characterise these centres. The results show that national collaboration is important for TCs and even more when those links are local. This is in line with that stated by other authors, considering that geographical proximity is essential for knowledge transfer. Regarding the Spanish institutional sectors, the strongest relations are established with universities. For their part, firms have low participation in publications, although they show an upward trend over the years. Nevertheless, TCs’ documents are mainly issued on industrial related topics, in agreement with their primary mission as promoters of firms’ innovation. Finally, as expected, differences between regions’ performance are seen, explained in part by disparities between regional systems. Notwithstanding, top producers establish connections with regions without TCs, mainly collaborating in documents related to engineering, medicine and environmental topics.