Sciences, technologies et visualisations

The overall geographical deconcentration discussed by Grosseti and Maisonobe can go along with strong concentration effects for emerging S&T. This is what we have shown for nano S&T that agglomerates in 200 ‘metropolitan areas’. A first analysis of collaboration practices has highlighted that, within inter-cluster collaborations, inter-continental collaborations remain marginal. This warrants a more in-depth analysis of dynamics within Europe. These first analyses have also highlighted two complementary results : (a) the spatial distribution of knowledge production differs when looking at exploration (seen through publications) and exploitation (seen through patents) ; and (b) there are quite diverging dynamics between clusters. This presentation focuses on the role of public funding in this dynamics and more specifically on the role of European Union programmes (that are by far the largest funder in Europe), the role it plays in the agglomeration process observed, in the collaboration patterns observed and whether the EU support applies more in exploration or in exploitation. This is done through the development of a dynamic query for delineating nano S&T, the mobilisation of the OECD-based approach of ‘functional urban areas’ and the integration of three RISIS datasets dealing with publications, patents and European Projects.