Do science parks promote research and technology? A scientometric analysis of the UK

This study investigates whether scientific publications can give plausible suggestions about whether R&D support infrastructures in the UK successfully foster scientific activity and cooperation. For this, research publications associated with UK SPs were identified from Scopus for the years 1975-2010 and analysed by region, infrastructure type and organisation type. There was apparently a systematic intensification of R&D from the 90s as evidenced by the publications of on-park firms and research institutions. Science Parks and Research Parks were the most successful infrastructures in fostering cooperation and research production, in comparison to Science and Innovation centres, Technology parks, Incubators and other parks, and HEIs were the major off-park partners for the on-park businesses. The East of England, the South East, and Scotland concentrate the highest proportion of parks, each of these three major geographical agglomerations exhibit distinct areas of scientific specialisation. Parks seem to have a positive impact on the overall level of collaboration and production of science and technology, which are highly concentrated in competitive regions. Nevertheless, industry-academia collaborations show that on-park firms tend to collaborate with partners beyond their local region rather than the local HEI. Support infrastructures may therefore not help to reduce the uneven development and geographic distribution of research-intensive industries in the UK.