Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) in the primary sector: Providing innovation to Russia's mines and corn fields
Abstract
Purpose
Given the immense gains in productivity in agriculture and mining over the last decades, the purpose of this paper is to study knowledge transfer from Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) into primary sector producers. The authors inquire which of these RTOs are successfully competing for public funding, and how these funds are used. Also, the authors study what makes an RTO more (financially) successful in technology transfer than their peers and which RTOs transferred technology that was new to the Russian market.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is based on 62 RTOs which reported technology transfer to enterprises with main economic activities classified by NACE rev 1 as “A – agriculture, hunting and forestry” and “B – fishing” and “C – mining and quarrying,” including oil and gas extraction.
Findings
The authors found remarkable differences between the Russian RTOs and their OECD peers, but also differences between agriculture and mining. Interestingly, competitive funding plays a different role in both industries. In agriculture, a more conservative funding paradigm prevails, and competitive funding is less important and more reliance on classical annually revolving funds is given. Competitive funding here is more used to strengthen basic R&D and to generate patentable knowledge, while in mining, these funds support technology transfer.
Originality/value
This is, to the knowledge, the first detailed study on Russian RTOs servicing her primary sector. The authors believe that studying these RTOs is of great value as RTOs are broadly under-researched and various scholars have called for more fine-grained analyses to better understand their role in the innovation system.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The paper is based on a pilot statistical survey of Russian Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) initiated by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) with assistance of the Research Laboratory for Economics of Innovation of NRU HSE, the Research Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies of NRU HSE and the Centre for Fundamental Studies of NRU HSE in 2010. The study was implemented in the framework of the Programme of Fundamental Studies of the Higher School of Economics in 2012.
Citation
Wolfgang Thurner, T. and Zaichenko, S. (2014), "Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) in the primary sector: Providing innovation to Russia's mines and corn fields", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 292-310. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-04-2013-0031
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited