R&D Collaboration Networks In The European Framework Programmes: Data Processing, Network Construction And Selected Results

The authors describe the construction of a large and novel data set on R&D collaboration networks in the first five EU Framework Programmes (FPs), examine key features and provide economic interpretations for the findings. The data set is based on publicly available raw data that presents numerous challenges. They critically examine the different problems and detail how they have dealt with them. They describe how they construct networks from the processed data. The resulting networks display properties typical for large complex networks, including scale-free degree distributions and the small-world property.