External Changes and R&I Inter-Organizational Network Dynamics: The Case of EU R&I Policy Change

The paper seeks to understand in what way changes in EU innovation policy incentives affect the EU R&I inter-organizational network dynamics. In particular, the study’s empirical settings are the two innovative inter-organizational networks that connect knowledge actors financed through two EU Framework Programs: the 7th Framework Program (or FP7), and the 8th Framework Program, named HORIZON 2020 (or H2020). Using a dataset of more than 22,228 unique projects in FP7 and 22,153 in H2020, we constructed two collaboration networks. We apply network analysis as a research instrument to identify and measure the fundamental structural properties and evolutionary dynamics of whole networks. In addition, through modularity optimization, we analyze and compare specific local evolutionary dynamics of the collaborative networks.