Comparing R&D consortia in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland

Purpose - R&D consortia as a new R&D cooperative form flourished in Japan, the USA, and Europe and can be regarded as a major tool for promoting industrial technological innovation and enhancing industry competitiveness. Inspired by R&D consortia in advanced countries, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland seek to develop the cooperative R&D mechanism in their own distinctive contexts. The purpose of this paper is to identify the patterns of their formation and development and to reveal the dynamics of R&D consortia (termed "public technological platforms" - PTPs) in the Chinese mainland) to give some implications for other developing countries that try to model the cooperative R&D policy for their own technology catch-up programmes.Design methodology approach - The paper provides an explanatory framework for analyzing how Taiwan and the Chinese mainland seek to develop R&D consortia based on comparative analysis and case study.Findings - R&D consortia in Taiwan and PTPs in the Chinese mainland have unique structural characteristics with their common catch-up goals and have been developing in different ways reflecting the relationships and interaction between academia, industry, and government. The effectiveness of R&D consortia is largely determined by the institutional arrangements including goal setting, organizational arrangements, and government involvement.Research limitations implications - Further analysis of R&D consortia and PTPs would be required to form empirical studies based on the collection of more extensive data.Practical implications - The key to R&D consortia PTPs' success is how to devise institutional arrangements to ensure effective cooperation between academia, industry, and government and to implement certain technology strategies effectively.Originality value - This research contributes by identifying the differences in development of Taiwan R&D consortia and Chinese mainland PTPs and by revealing their evolutionary process.