Patent Collaboration Networks in Latin America: Extra-regional Orientation and Core-Periphery Structure

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes international collaboration networks associated with invention and patenting in Latin America between 1970 and 2017. We use data from US patent records retrieved from the Patents View platform. We select patents with actors located in Latin American countries and create networks where nodes are countries and links represent collaboration among inventors and among patent owners located in different countries. We apply various social network analysis methods. First, we calculate whole-network indicators with the aim of comparing interaction dynamics on a regional scale with extra regional connections. Second, we test the existence of a core-periphery structure and identify core and peripheral countries in the network. Results show a clear extra-regional orientation of links, evidencing the absence of a regionally integrated innovation system and the existence of a core-periphery structure. In such structure, only the largest countries in the region, like Brazil, Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Argentina, Chile or Colombia, monopolize most of the international collaborative links which connect them mainly to Europe, Asia and the US. Meanwhile, the rest of the Latin American countries remain almost disconnected from each other. These findings seem to reveal two important weaknesses of the regional innovation system in Latin America: first, innovation processes developed in the region are excessively dependent on collaborations with countries outside Latin America; second, there is a waste of potential sub-regional collaborations between neighboring countries that could be sharing research projects and complementing their capacities and resources to improve innovation processes.

KEYWORDS

• International collaboration
• Patents
• Social network analysis
• Latin America
• Invention
• Core-periphery

Showing references and in-text citations exactly as published.

• DOI10.5530/jscires.10.1s.22Copy

RELATED ARTICLES

Matched on section and article type within this issue of JSR.

• Article · VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1SCancer Research in Latin America, 2014-2019, and its Disease BurdenGrant Lewison, Gareth I Owen, Henry Gomez, Eduardo Cazap, Raul Murillo, Karla Unger Saldaña, Marisa Dreyer, Audrey Tsunoda, Jorge Jimenez De La Jara · pp. s21–s31Research ArticleSame type: Article
• Article · VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1SGlobal trends, Local threads. The Thematic Orientation of Renewable Energy Research in Mexico and Argentina between 1992 and 2016Matías Federico Milia · pp. s32–s45Research ArticleSame type: Article
• Article · VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1SAnalysing the Differences in the Scientific Diffusion and Policy Impact of Analogous Theoretical Approaches: Evidence for Territorial Innovation ModelsCristian Brixner, Silvina Alejandra Romano, Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia · pp. s46–s58Research ArticleSame type: Article
• Article · VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1SMobility of the Members of the National System of Researchers of Mexico in their Academic Training in Latin AmericaEduardo Robles-Belmont · pp. s71–s77Research ArticleSame type: Article