تامین مالی عمومی پروژه های "تحقیق و توسعه" مشارکتی در اسپانیا : پروژه های هماهنگ تحت برنامه ملی "تحقیق و توسعه"

This work will analyse the factors which influence decision-making within the Spanish public sector on the financing of precompetitive research projects developed by firms in collaboration with universities and public research organisms. With this objective in mind, an econometric model is proposed that explains simultaneously the concession of aid on behalf of the public sector and the amount of such aid. The estimates carried out indicate, among other results, that the destination of the budgeted funds explains a large part of the public financing received. However, all the evidence would seem to indicate that the funding has not been awarded either in order to significantly favour those firms which most need it, nor to give incentive to high levels of cooperation.

The collaboration in R&D activities between firms and public research centres (PRCs) constitutes a strategic element towards innovation in the productive sector and towards the achievement of a better planning and exploitation of the resources set aside for research in the public sector. In this sense it is not surprising that there is a wide range of literature which analyses the factors and difficulties which determine the cooperation in R&D between private and public sector.1 In parallel, governments of different countries place special interest in the design of adequate aid which expedites and promotes this type of collaboration. In this work an instrument of technological policy existent in Spain, known as the Concerted Projects under the National R&D Plan, will be analysed. This is a national initiative put into practice in 1988 that pursues two types of objectives: to foment R&D activities in firm and to encourage cooperation between the latter and public research centres. The aid consists of the concession of interest-free loans to precompetitive research projects developed by businesses which, in most cases, must include the participation of a research team from universities and/or public research organisms.

The aim of this work is to analyse the action of the administration when funding precompetitive projects carried out by firms with the cooperation of PRCs. One of the results obtained is that the project budget and the destination of this budget are the most important factors to explain the financing awarded to a project. The maximum financing is provided when equipment is acquired for the participant PRCs, which is reasonable if it is taken into account that they could be re-used later by the PRCs for their own research. On the other hand, it is much less when it comes to incorporating fixed assets for the firm. The rest of the expenses which the projects generate are treated in an intermediate way. In fact, the results obtained seem to indicate that the public performance has consisted of applying quite general criteria to all the projects which were acepted, without significantly favouring those that, in principle, because of their characteristics, were closer to the objectives of fomenting R&D activities and encouraging cooperation between PRCs and firms. Even so, it seems to be detected that public action tends to finance a little more generously those firms with less tendency to participate in concerted projects. This behaviour means that the larger firms, with large R&D departments, receive less funding than the rest. On the other hand, very small firms, in which a considerable proportion of their staff are devoted to R&D activities, are most favoured.