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The participants in the Sino-Swedish program

5.6 Comparing the three case studies

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the data in the above graphs and from interviews with researchers in the Chalmers Transport Area of Advance.

First, collaboration between Chalmers and universities abroad has been increasing. Good examples are the number of research collaborations with U.S., Japan, China, Iran, Germany and Denmark. Second, in the context of the Chalmers Transport Area of Advance and based on interviews conducted with researchers working in the transport area, there is no evidence that long-distance hinders or delays research collaboration. This is contrary to what data from the two eco-innovation programs suggest; geographical distance was a major obstacle for the sustainability of the two international programs. Moreover, in the context of the Transport AoA, there is no data supporting claims that language and cultural differences are factors that might hinder collaboration among researchers. On the contrary, the above figures show that the biggest percentage increase in research collaboration occurred between Chalmers University and universities in the U.S.

support innovation development in key sectors in Sweden. They are also part of the broader challenge innovation model in which a variety of actors across companies, academia and the government identify societal problems and work collaboratively to find solutions to these problems. Both programs focus on three broad areas: environment, urban sustainability and energy efficiency. Both programs involve participation of research institutes, universities and companies in Sweden and have similar design: both programs have similar funding cycles for Calls A and B. The programs utilize the 2+ 2 approach, involving joint projects with the participation of universities and industry and require partnership formation with Brazilian and Chinese research partners. The eco-innovation grants support the planning stage, involving partnership building and feasibility studies (Type-A projects). The grants also support projects at implementation phases (Type-B projects).

Table 10 Actors’ perspectives on the policy programs

Programs Negative Aspects Positive Aspects

Sino-Swedish Eco-Innovation program

Science-industry interaction viewed as positive and important.

Geographic distance; difficult to recruit PhDs due to lack of funding; unilateral funding viewed as major problem; Type-B actors mostly satisfied with funding;

pressure from the Swedish industry to deliver results.

Sweden-Brazil Eco-Innovation

program Science-industry interaction

viewed as positive and important. Geographic distance; difficult to recruit PhDs due to lack of funding; unilateral funding viewed as major issue; Type-A actors expressed relative dissatisfied with government funding.

Chalmers Transport Area of Advance

Funding not viewed as a problem;

close partnership with industry and science-industry partnership viewed as crucial.

Difficult to recruit PhD students due to lack of qualifications;

implicit teaching-research trade-offs

Source: author

All three case studies exhibit differences but the differences are greater between the two Eco-Innovation programs and the Chalmers Transport Area of Advance.

First, the two Eco-Innovation Cooperation programs can be viewed as a

response to recent strategies put forward by the Swedish Government. These strategies include the promotion of domestic industry and investment in R&D.

Implicit in this strategy is forging science and technology partnerships with emerging markets. A good example is the 2011 strategy for export and development of environmental strategy. The Swedish Government allocated 400 million SEK between 2011 and 2014 to promote environmental technologies and services (OECD, 2014). By the end of 2013, 20 state-sponsored assignments were given to ten governmental agencies (Tillväxtanalys, 2013).

Some of the outputs of the strategy included the launching of approximately 100 projects, technical visas and trips by delegations, the establishment of Swedish and international cooperation consortia (OECD, 2014 ). Additional results from this strategy include, better knowledge of export markets and products tailored to export markets, the establishment of business relations, cooperation between Swedish and foreign partners (OECD 2014).

The above indicates that forging S&T ties with emerging economies have been coupled with other goals (e.g. economic such as export promotion and trade;

political objectives). One perspective is the apparent increase in interest in forging bilateral S&T linkages with emerging markets is motivated by interests to promote innovation and enhance research quality at home and strengthen S&T ties between countries. Thus, the two eco-innovation programs have primarily an international focus, whereas the Chalmers Transport Area of Advance program does not originate in internationalization ambitions and purposes. Second, the two innovation cooperation programs are strategic in their design, following the 2+2 approach, discussed earlier. They are also unique in terms of their formulation and implementation processes. The two Eco-Innovation Cooperation initiatives emerged to fulfill a number of goals and are short-term programs whereas the Transport AoA has long-term goals and emerged from the 2008 Research Policy Bill.

Third, the two Eco-Innovation Cooperation programs can be characterized as innovation cooperation instruments that focus on three priority areas:

environmental technology, urban sustainable development and energy efficiency. Regarding the Chalmers Transport AoA, although the research is within the transport area, the focus can be more general, multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary centered on transport sustainability, efficiency and safety.

Both international Eco-Innovation Cooperation programs involve the participation of actors from industry and academia (2+2 approach), whereas in the Chalmers case, researchers have a greater degree of freedom in the selection of their partners (there are no specific requirements that researchers have to collaborate with actors from designated countries or that research has to be conducted in pre-selected research fields which is the case in the two innovation programs).

Moreover, it seems that in the Chalmers Transport Area of Advance, the majority of research collaborations are between scholars in the transport-related fields and university-industry partnerships, whereas in the two Eco-Innovation Cooperation programs, the composition of the research partners seemed more diverse involving actors from industry, research institutes and universities.

Regarding program goal and aim, the innovation programs combine strategic innovation, challenge innovation and strategic internationalization in one single program. In the case of the Transport Area of Advance, the three concepts are not part of the program design and aim; their focus is on science-industry research cooperation and cross-disciplinary and multidisciplinary research.