Collaborations for innovation: a meta-study of relevant typologies, governance and policies

Innovation is often the result of collaborative efforts, but many firms lack skills and resources to engage in collaborations. Therefore, policy-makers have developed a variety of measures and programmes to increase interaction and favour partnerships between organisations. They range from innovation vouchers, meant to provide SMEs with external knowledge and opportunities for business partnerships (mostly dyadic), to consortia for R&D, marketing or production (small group of participants), to cluster initiatives involving many geographically concentrated organisations. For each of these main forms, we carried out a multiple-case study research. This paper is a meta-study (specifically a meta-synthesis) of previous pieces of research conducted by mostly the same authors. Here, we identify the commonalities of the forms of collaboration that are conducive to innovation, how to govern them and discuss the policy instruments that foster collaboration while reducing opportunistic behaviours.