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CIMR working papers

The objective of the CIMR Working Papers is to publicise research being done by its academics, PhD students, research fellows, visiting fellows, stakeholders and visitors.

The editors are , and Carlo Milana.

For further details contact Helen Lawton Smith at: .

The CIMR Working Papers series, which includes working papers (WP) and think pieces (TP), is published on and

  • 2026

    • TP1: . Alina Khakimova, Federica Rossi, Ning Baines
      The paper synthesises insights from three studies that examine collaborations between universities and arts and cultural organisations from different but interrelated perspectives. It proposes a research agenda for understanding the role of cultural organisations in knowledge production and societal transformation.
    • TP2: . Andrea Filippetti
      The paper concludes that innovation studies are facing a new era in which fresh questions can be formulated. This opens up a sea of opportunities for those who have the passion, energy, and time to pick the most challenging ones and try to answer them in the old way: by studying hard.
    • TP3: Fabrizio Tuzi, Viviana D'Angelo
      The paper discusses the technological gap between Europe and the UK in the field of Artificial Intelligence infrastructure and proposes integrated regulatory solutions to support technological catch-up in both regions.
    • TP4: . Kasuni Chamudika
      This paper reflects on what might be done to overcome the economic challenges facing SMEs in Sri Lanka using the author's 5D Triangle which helps to understand the 360 view of the business before moving to MVP development.
    • TP5: . Theo Papaioannou
      There is currently a debate on the need for a new type of developmental state that can create both capacity and capability for implementing industrial policy to address multiple challenges. This paper looks at the specific case of Greece.
    • TP6: Jacqueline Winstanley
      This paper reflects on the ways in which AI can be a valuable tool. For example, it can assist with many tasks, speed others up and ease the load. The paper also explores the limitations of AI.

  • 2025

    • WP72: Marion Frenz, Frederic Marimon, Marta Mas Machuca and Saverio Romeo
      This study explores how generative AI tools affect employee performance in small and medium businesses using the Job Demands-Resources theory and survey data from 465 employees. Findings show that trust in AI tools enhances engagement and reduces exhaustion, with notable differences between small and medium-sized firms, highlighting the importance of fostering trust to maximise AI's workplace benefits.
    • WP71: Helen Lawton Smith, Bill O鈥橤orman and Richard Hayes
      This paper uses Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) (now part of South East Technological University, SETU) in Ireland as a case study to explore the extent to which graduates from HEIs contribute to the innovative capability and capacity in the region in which they are educated.

  • 2024

    • WP70: ;听Riccardo Zecchinelli, Federica Rossi, Ana Colovic, Simona Ciappei and Andrea Bonomi Savignon; The paper explores the role of digital innovation intermediaries in facilitating the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies. It examines the business models of 20 intermediaries from Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the UK.
    • WP69:听; Fabrizio Tuzi and Andrea Filippetti;听This paper examines the effectiveness of mission-oriented research projects, particularly through the lens of demand-side policies such as public procurement for innovation.听The paper suggests improving the skills of public procurers and setting spending targets for innovative tenders to better harness the potential of public procurement in promoting innovation.

  • 2023

    • WP68:听;听Tojonirinarisoa Nomenjanahary Ravelosaona;听This paper examines how contract farming companies in Africa effectively manage innovation while working with small-scale farmers, emphasizing the importance of understanding farmers鈥 limitations and using participatory approaches, data-driven decision-making, and continuous feedback collection to foster innovation
    • WP67:听;听Daniele Archibugi and Natalia Tosoni;听The feed-back generated by consumers and citizens about products and services is helping to reduce information asymmetries, but may also lead to unexpected forms of social control against which we need to react.
    • WP66:听;听Helen Lawton Smith;听This paper demonstrates how disabled women entrepreneurs have been able to respond quickly during the Covid 19 crisis in addressing challenges faced by disabled entrepreneurs. It gives examples of women who have distinctive voices as leaders and advocates on behalf of minority entrepreneurs.
    • WP65:听;听Thanos Fragkandreas;听This paper deals with a largely unnoticed methodological paradox concerning the scientific status of case study research on innovation systems (ISs). The paper not only resolves the case study paradox but also enables innovation researchers to reimagine and conduct case study research in a stand-alone, paradox-free, causal explanatory and generalisable way.
    • WP64:听;听Giovanna Ciaffi, Matteo Deleidi and Enrico Sergio Levrero;听This paper investigates the impact of public R&D on economic growth and the R&D investment carried out by the private sector. It draws on a dataset of 15 OECD countries for the period 1981-2017.
    • WP63:听;听Andrea Filippetti and Antonio Zinilli;听Innovation collaboration is a crucial mechanism for knowledge diffusion across regions and countries. Which role do city-regions play in European innovation diffusion? In the exclusive network model city-regions establish a closed network of innovators among themselves; in the inclusive network models city-regions build a network of innovators which includes the peripheral regions. We show that the two models coexist: city-regions act as both engines of generation and diffusion of innovation.

  • 2022

    • WP62:听, Keith Smith;听This paper argues that the Ukraine war has reconfigured the geopolitical structure of the world. The sanctions regime adopted by the West will not significantly damage either the Russian or Chines economies because they have comprehensive resource bases and industrial capabilities. But the resulting bipolar geopolitical structure severely inhibits the global collaboration that is necessary to deal with the innovation challenges of climate change.
    • WP61: , Jonathan Potter, Helen Lawton Smith;听This paper reports on an application of the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept across five case study regions in two countries 鈥 the United Kingdom and Poland 鈥 focusing on the policy insights it provides and its usefulness as a policy development tool.
    • WP60: , Thanos Fragkandreas;This paper presents a critical review of studies on innovation and inequality (1990-2019) based on a systematic literature review. While the majority of studies agree that innovation induces inequality, the finding is subject to disciplinary and country under investigation. It is concluded that the relationship between innovation and inequality is subject to five causal scenarios and a range of explanatory factors.
    • WP59: , George Yunxiong Li, Andrea Ascani, Simona Iammarino;听Rare metals (RMs) have become a material basis for advanced technological change: this relationship is particularly strong for emerging fields such as semiconductors, nanotechnology and green energy technologies. This study contributes to the understanding of how technological dynamics are shaped by the availability of natural resources with technological criticality.
    • WP58: , Jeremy Galpin;听This paper provides 12 practical recommendations arising from research into the opportunities, risks and barriers in the use of digital technology, to maximise social value, through major infrastructure projects. This research addresses the gap around the intersection between social value, digital technology, and the infrastructure sector in existing literature.

  • 2021

    • WP57: , Margherita Russo, Annalisa Caloffi, Ana Colovic, Pasquale Pavone, Saverio Romeo, Federica Rossi;听Digital transformation is a key strategic issue for countries and regions aiming to boost economic growth, job creation, technology development and innovation. With a focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) the paper maps the potential of IoT technologies across European regions, using textual analysis applied to the description of companies鈥 activities.
    • WP56: , Thanos Fragkandreas;听The paper identifies seven causal mechanisms through which innovation as a systemic activity affects the distribution of income in modern-day economies.
    • WP55: , Helen Lawton Smith and Beldina Owalla;听This paper provides evidence of the geography of support initiatives available to ethnic minority women entrepreneurs in the UK. It analyses the data from an inclusive ecosystem approach.
    • WP54: , Saverio Romeo, Helen Lawton Smith, Erran Carmel and John Slater;听This review paper on the emerging quantum technology sector presents a survey of academic and industry sources to explore the current position of Washington DC and London UK as concentrations of relevant innovation activity. It explores the conditions under which certain parts of the innovation process are located in these two capital cities. A short interview with Saverio Romeo discussing this paper is available to watch here.
    • WP53: , Andrea Filippetti and Neil Lee;听The willingness to take risks is an important part of the economy which is shaped both by personal characteristics and local context. We investigate whether individual risk-taking is influenced by the local economy. After controlling for individual characteristics we find that worsening unemployment reduces people鈥檚 willingness to take risks.
    • WP52: , Kieron Flanagan, Elvira Uyarra and Iris Wanzenb枚ck;听The starting point of this paper is that the dominant supply side approach to innovation and industrial policy is insufficient to inform a regional development agenda that can address place-based environmental and societal challenges. This paper builds on political/policy science approaches and sociology of markets and valuation approaches to suggest new possibilities for innovation and industrial policy interventions
    • WP51: , Te Klangboonkrong and Ning Baines;听Given the paucity and the fragmented nature of the extant literature on disability entrepreneurship, this systematic literature review juxtaposes the current body of knowledge to the individual-opportunity nexus perspective on entrepreneurship. The finding shows six emerging themes, which suggest that while the term disability is understood in relation to structural hindrances on multiple levels, current understanding of how these challenges could be overcome is mostly related to adaptive mechanisms at the individual level. .
    • WP50: , Daniele Archibugi and Vitantonio Mariella;听Pervasive new technologies associated with ICTs and software are dominated by a restricted oligopoly of US-based corporations. This article argues that the EU urgently needs to add another economic policy instrument to defy these incumbent firms, namely to create a few publicly supported large corporations in the areas of greater scientific and technological opportunities.
    • WP49: , Federica Rossi, Ana Colovic, Annalisa Caloffi and Margherita Russo;听Building on a case study of public innovation intermediaries in France and the UK, we argue that these organisations have a specific role to play in the context on the emerging, complex, and yet not fully commoditised set of technologies underpinning the 鈥榝ourth industrial revolution鈥.
    • WP48: , Suma Athreye, Abubakr Saeed and Muhammad Saad Baloch;听Chinese and Indian outward investment paths that looked so similar before 2008 began to diverge rapidly after the financial crisis. This paper proposes that the motives for outward investment interacted with the sources of financing this investment to produce this divergent outcome.
    • WP47: , Daniele Archibugi, Riccardo Evangelista and Antonio Vezzani.听Have the EU policies for science and technology, specifically the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, contributed to reduce or to amplify regional differences in innovation? And, how could the contrasting objectives of reducing geographical disparities and promoting EU excellence be achieved?

  • 2020

    • WP46: , Gillian Gray and Helen Lawton Smith.听The decision of someone over the age of 50 to switch from traditional employment to being an entrepreneur is found to arise from a complex mix of personal motivation, access to resources and environmental determinants.
    • WP45: , Grazia Ietto-Gillies.听The paper focuses on digital transnational corporations and the challenges they pose for theory and policy. The theory of transnationals may need rethinking as the balance between foreign assets, revenues and employment diverges from more traditional transnationals. The major policy challenge is in terms governments trying to counteract the ease with which the digital TNCs can minimise their tax liability world wide. (A revised version of this working paper has now been published as: Ietto-Gillies, G. (2021) 鈥楾ransnationality in the XXI century. Concept and indicators鈥, Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 18, 3: 338-361 鈥 https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib -11-2020-0135).

  • 2019

    • WP44: , Claudio Fassio, Aldo Geuna and Federica Rossi.听We investigate the determinants of industry researchers鈥 interactions with universities in different localities, distinguishing between local and international universities. Our findings suggest that industry researchers鈥 personal networks play a greater role in promoting interactions with local universities while researcher employment in a multinational is especially important for establishing interactions with universities abroad.
    • WP43: , Maryann Feldman, Fred Guy and Simona Iammarino.听Many of the most prosperous places in the U.S. are hotbeds of technology and also the home bases of companies which exercise monopoly power across much larger territories 鈥 nationally, or even globally. This paper makes four arguments about how monopoly power and financialization increase regional income disparities.
    • WP42: . Rinaldo Evangelista, Valentina Meliciani and Antonio Vezzani.听This paper studies the specialisation of EU regions in key enabling (KETs) and fast growing (FGTs) technologies and assesses whether being specialized in these technological areas has an effect on regional growth. The evidence presented shows that only specialisation in KETs affects regional economic growth, while no significant effects are found for FGTs.
    • WP41: . Helen Lawton Smith and Rupert Waters.听This paper challenges the idea of a direct association between the presence of universities and the level of skills in the workforce by comparing two neighbouring counties in the South East of England, both prosperous areas in the UK. These are Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

  • 2018

    • WP40: . Ellen Siu.听This paper explores the interorganisational collaboration phenomenon in university-hospital partnership, focusing on how clinical and scientific actors in an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) leverage different proximity dimensions in translational research.
    • WP39: 听Leila Maria Kehl.听Based on a critical analysis of the current stakeholder management in the biotechnology industry, the concept of Participatory Research Ethics (PRE) is introduced to the literature on participatory stakeholder approaches. It addresses and aims to overcome current obstacles that hinder the implementation of the established concepts, Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) and Participatory Action Research (PAR).

  • 2017

    • WP38: . Annalisa Caloffi, Federica Rossi and Margherita Russo.听Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D; collaboration policy, carried out in Tuscany (Italy), we investigate different types of persistent network additionality, namely persistence effect, breadth effect, composition effect, and depth effect.
    • WP37: Luisa Gagliardi and Simona Iammarino.听This paper analyses the relationship between firm engagement in innovation and perception of market risk. It points to heterogeneity in the behaviour of multinationals (MNEs) versus single domestic firms, emphasising how this relationship changes across regional contexts.
    • WP36: . Helen Lawton Smith.听The paper provides an appraisal and synthesis of the regional innovation systems approach in relation to entrepreneurship policies. It addresses a number of areas where theoretical, empirical and policy-based issues are currently under-developed in relation to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship policy.

  • 2016

    • WP35: . Helen Lawton Smith, Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Laurel Edmunds.听The geography of the biomedical sector, that of clustering in particular regions, presents an opportunity for place-specific understanding of processes involved in translational research in medical sciences, particularly with regard to the role of public policy and its outcomes in four bioscience regions in Europe.
    • WP34: . Margherita Russo, Annalisa Caloffi, Federica Rossi and Riccardo Righi.听The paper focuses on the issue of how to identify appropriate indicators to measure the performance of publicly-funded innovation intermediaries. It argues that indicators need to be closely tied to the policy鈥檚 objectives, which are usually linked to the remedying of innovation system failures. The case of a policy programme implemented in Tuscany (Italy) is used to illustrate how the choice of performance indicators that are only loosely tied to the policy鈥檚 objectives, can lead intermediaries to adopt behaviours that are misaligned with those objectives. The findings are then used to develop some implications for the design of performance indicators that are aligned with the objectives of policy.
    • WP33: . Valentina Meliciani and Debora Radicchia.听This paper investigates the role of skill heterogeneity in affecting differences in occupational mismatch across fields of study. By relying on measures of overeducation and overskill collected in the 2014 ISFOL survey, we test to which extent the two phenomena differ across fields of study and the role played by merit and non-cognitive skills. We find that having an excellent graduate curriculum significantly decreases over-education and over-skill, while non-cognitive skills do not matter.
    • WP32: Mabel S谩nchez Barrioluengo, Elvira Uyarra and Fumi Kitagawa.听This paper examines the evolution of the dynamics of the triple helix interactions exemplified by the case of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England. Results highlight the persisting heterogeneity between HEIs in their combination, geography and evolution of triple helix interactions, particularly between research oriented universities and newer universities with strong teaching orientations.
    • WP31: . Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti.听In the last decades a major trend has been ignored: both the quota of public R&D and its share over the total R&D investment has shrunk in most OECD countries. As a result, a larger fraction of knowledge is today generated in the private sector. We argue that this is a major problem since public research and private research differ along a number of characteristics. This has implications for innovation and welfare. Through the lens of the public goods theory and the evolution of R&D for the period 1981-2012 we try to explain why.
    • WP30: .听Riccardo Crescenzi, Andrea Filippetti, and Simona Iammarino.听This paper addresses a number of questions on university-industry (U-I) collaborations. We find that U-I collaborations are less likely to happen when compared to other types of collaboration. Geographical proximity facilitates collaboration; it also works as a possible substitute for institutional proximity, facilitating U-I collaborations. 鈥楽tar inventors鈥 play an important role in 鈥榖ridging鈥 universities and industry.
    • WP29: . Francesca Sgobbi.听The paper investigates the effectiveness of training initiatives by checking whether a measure of employee-job fit and a measure of employee potential are significant determinants of participation in employer-sponsored training undertaken for job-related reasons. The empirical analysis, extended to five large EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), is based on OECD PIAAC Survey.

  • 2015

    • WP28: ; Andrea Filippetti, Frederick Guy, and Simona Iammarino;听This paper explores the relative effectiveness of training in securing continued employment in a time of economic downturn, within the context of the Italian territorial dualism. We use a panel on 4,861 individuals for the period 2008-2011 and focus on how the effects of training differ between the South and the Centre-North of Italy, and also across workers with different levels of education.
    • WP27: . Natalie Holden;听This paper explores how environmental 鈥 social, spatial, temporal and institutional 鈥 contexts and individual motivations interact to influence entrepreneurial behaviour during a process of collaborative innovation. This is a qualitative case study into an Innovate UK funded inter-industry collaboration which took place in Bristol from 2011-2014.
    • WP26: .听Rachel Lock and Helen Lawton Smith;听This paper explores the challenges facing female entrepreneurs in Kenya. A key theme is how, through the improved availability of micro-finance, women鈥檚 entrepreneurship is becoming a successful model for lifting women and their immediate families out of poverty.
    • WP25: Thanos Fragkandreas;听The paper provides an extensive review on two of the most popular innovation paradoxes in the literature of innovation studies, that of the European paradox and of the Swedish paradox. It draws some important conclusions relevant for both theory and practice.鈥
    • WP24: . Ainurul Rosli and Federica Rossi;听This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities鈥 knowledge transfer activities. In light of different models of how knowledge flows from university to industry 鈥 each requiring different indicators 鈥 we compare four monitoring exercises currently implemented in the UK, US and Canada, Australia and Europe.
    • WP23: . Rinaldo Evangelista;听This contribution highlights the complex, non-linear and potentially contradictory nature of the relationships between technological progress, economic growth and social development, in particular within the context of market based economies. It is also argued that a 鈥減ositivistic bias鈥 affects also the neo-Schumpeterian literature characterized by the dominance of a supply-side and micro-based view of the technology-economy relationships.
    • WP22: . Matthew Crail Johnson;听This paper explore the ex post effect that initial public offerings have on the innovative performance of companies using a quantitative measure of patent activity in the years preceding and following the event.

  • 2014

    • WP21: . Emiliano Mandrone, David D鈥橝ngelo;听This paper uses data from the ISFOL PLUS Survey to focus on the specific features of the Italian labour market and of the Italian Public Employment Services (PESs) so as to analyse the difficulties that they face in responding to the challenges posed by the Youth Guarantee (YG), both in terms of reorganisation and of strengthened financial effort.
    • WP20: . Ainurul Rosli, Federica Rossi;听The paper proposes a conceptual framework to explain why, particularly when policies deal with complex and ambiguous issues, an increasing gap may open up between government-set objectives and the instruments used for policy implementation and evaluation: the former are characterized by increasing breadth and ambiguity, while the latter become progressively narrower in scope. The case of policies in support of university-industry knowledge transfer in the United Kingdom is used as an illustration of how these processes can play out in practice.
    • WP19: . Valentina Meliciani, Debora Radicchia;听The paper investigates the consequence of the use of the informal recruitment channel on the phenomenon of overeducation and on the internal migration in the Italian labour market.
    • WP18: . Maja Savic, Helen Lawton Smith and Ioannis Bournakis;听The paper explores the effect of external knowledge sources and their geography on innovation activity in small Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS). It draws on results from a survey conducted in 2010 of 342 small and medium (SME) KIBS in the UK鈥檚 North East and West Midlands.
    • WP17: . Riccardo Crescenzi, Luisa Gagliardi, Simona Iammarino;听This paper investigates whether the presence of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) carrying out investment activities in the UK benefits the innovation capacity of domestic firms within the same industry.
    • WP16: . Federica Rossi;听Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university institutions engage in knowledge transfer activities, and study the institutional and environmental factors that influence their efficiency. While most current studies limit their focus to intellectual property disclosures, we focus on a broad range of knowledge transfer outputs that include also research and consultancy contracts, professional training courses, and public engagements.

  • 2013

    • WP15: , Gabriel Awuah, Ingemar Wictor;听This paper deals with how born global firms learn from own experiences and from other actors, with whom the firms interact in foreign markets, to create innovative solutions for international growth.
    • WP14: Rinaldo Evangelista, Matteo Lucchese, Valentina Meliciani;听
    • WP13: Federica Rossi and Ainurul Rosli;听This paper outlines some critical issues connected with the choice of appropriate indicators in the measurement of universities鈥 performance in knowledge transfer.
    • WP12: Helen Lawton Smith, Saverio Romeo and Rupert Waters;听The paper focuses on how regions become entrepreneurial and the extent to which the actors in the triple helix model are dominant at particular stages in development. It uses the case studies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire in the UK to explore this theme.
    • WP11: Henry Etzkowitz;听The paper examines how the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation can be expanded into different forms to map civic entrepreneurship. To do so it uses the case of the makings of a cultural cluster in Oregon in the USA.
    • WP10: . Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz, Grazia Ietto-Gillies;听This paper analyses the impact of internationalization on the innovation performance of 42 countries and for these countries finds support that competing in international markets via outward FDI and exports increases the scope of learning and the need to innovate.

  • 2012

    • WP 9: . Luca Andriani.听We consider the industrial districts 鈥渃onductors鈥 of social capital. Hence, we use the regional density of industrial districts to measure social capital and we analyse its impact on regional unemployment in Italy.
    • WP 8: . Simona Iammarino, Elisabetta Marinelli.听This paper explores the patterns of education-job (mis)matching of recent university graduates, focussing on the impact of interregional migration.
    • WP 7: . Andrea Filippetti, Frederick Guy.听We find that firms in countries which have both high earnings replacement rates and high participation in vocational education and training were less likely to reduce investments in innovation following the onset of the financial crisis; countries with only one of these features were more likely to see reduced investment in innovation; job security appears to have no effect.
    • WP 6: Daniele Archibugi, Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz.听This paper, based on the latest three waves of the UK Community Innovation Survey, compares drivers of innovation investment before and during the crisis, and finds that the crisis led to a concentration of innovative activities among fast growing and already innovative firms.
    • WP 5: . Daniele Archibugi, Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz.听Building on the Schumpeterian hypotheses of creative destruction and technological accumulation, the paper compares drivers of innovation investment before, during and following on from the onset of the recent economic crisis through the analysis of a fresh survey of European firms.
    • WP 4: . Francesca Mameli, Simona Iammarino, Ron Boschma.听This paper investigates the effects of different forms of regional sectoral diversity on employment growth of Italian manufacturing and service industries.
    • WP3: . Michael Kianfar, Helen Lawton Smith, Carlo Milana.听The current phase of the financial crisis which poses problems to companies, policy makers and academicians, requires profound re-thinking and reorganization of strategies, actions and instruments.
    • WP2: . Rupert Waters, Helen Lawton Smith.听Building on previous work (Lawton Smith and Waters, 2011) this paper draws on national datasets to review the continued and different development of the high tech economies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

  • 2011

    • WP1: . Marion Frenz and Ray Lambert.听This paper develops a typology of mixed modes of innovation 鈥 bundles of activities done by firms jointly to bring about new developments 鈥 and examines the role of the innovation modes in performance through the empirical analysis of innovation survey data from 18 OECD countries.