Emergence of global innovation networks evidence from European multinationals

During the past two decades, multinationals have been the major actors for establishing global innovation networks (GINs) via knowledge producing in order to gain new market opportunities. In these networks, innovation is created and shared in different locations around the world among actors like government, non-governmental institutions, and universities or multinational’s different partners like subsidiaries and suppliers. Even customers involve in GINs as a source of information for new ideas. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to investigate what global innovation networks are, why they are created and what policy implications they pose for Europe. The findings presented in the paper are based on a survey and case studies conducted by INGINEUS7, and on a series of qualitative and quantitative data of three industries: agro-food (agricultural processed products), ICT (information communication technologies) and automotive. INGINEUS project findings reveal that among 1215 European firms, few of them are involved in real global innovation networks.