A Study on the analysis of R&D activity efficiency in terms of knowledge spillover: Focusing on research outputs by country

Abstract

Countries around the world increase industrial competitiveness through scientific and technological innovation with R&D investment, and ultimately lead to labor productivity and economic growth. When establishing an investment strategy for R&D activities at the national level, it is a priority to consider creating the maximum effect within limited resources. However, from a long-term perspective, technology development is still slow, but there is also a need to ensure that technologies necessary for national development can be developed on time. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the efficiency of research and development activities at the national level in consideration of various aspects such as efficiency and publicity, to establish research and development strategies based on this, and to allocate research and development resources. However, most of the previous studies related to the analysis of R&D efficiency at the national level mainly derived efficiency by measuring the effect of R&D input such as R&D investment and manpower on R&D output such as article and patent. In the case of technologies that are still in commercial use despite continuous interest and high level of R&D investment, research from a new perspective is needed to analyze those kind of R&D activities. This study conducted a study consisting of the following two papers to supplement the limitations of previous studies related to R&D efficiency analysis between countries and to draw implications from different perspectives. In the first essay, the current status of carbon capture/utilization/storage technology research achievements was analyzed, which is still in slow commercialization despite continuous investment, and the R&D activity efficiency of each country in terms of knowledge spillover was analyzed using data envelopment analysis. In addition, through the return to scale analysis of each group according to the carbon dioxide emission level by country, it was analyzed how the technology development motivation can affect the appropriate number of research results. As a result of the analysis, it was found that an active technology development policy based on specialized policy research institutes and the construction of various test beds for empirical analysis contributed to improving efficiency in terms of knowledge spillover. In addition, it was found that not only a high level of R&D investment, but also a market infrastructure for technology and the establishment of relevant laws and regulations are indispensable factors for improving research efficiency. Lastly, it suggested that countries with low CO2 emission levels need substantial R&D activities for detailed technologies that match national characteristics through selection and concentration strategy rather than quantitative research outcome creation. Next, in the second essay, the R&D activity efficiency of public technologies was analyzed, which are difficult to commercialize. For the earthquake technology, one of the technologies with strong publicity, the appropriate number of research results by seismic frequency was presented, and two-stage network data envelopment analysis was used to measure the continuous research efficiency in terms of knowledge diffusion and application. This analysis showed that the frequency of earthquake occurrence has a positive correlation with the number of appropriate research results. In addition, countries that are effective in both stages of knowledge diffusion and application are creating and spreading effective research results through active seismic monitoring and research activities by specialized seismic institutions. Countries that have difficulties in applying knowledge and creating real research effects despite their well-distributed research outcomes should make various efforts to effectively utilize the diffused research outcomes. This study analyzed the R&D efficiency from a new perspective in terms of knowledge spillover about technologies that are still underutilized or technologies that are difficult to commercialize despite continuous investment. The following three implications could be suggested by performing R&D efficiency analysis based on cross country data. First, through the analysis of R&D efficiency between countries in terms of knowledge spillover, it is possible to understand what factors should be considered in order to increase the qualitative efficiency of R&D performance. Second, the return to scale analysis to see the effect of R&D drivers on the number of R&D outputs can suggest a qualitative level of research achievements and a target level to improve the efficiency of knowledge diffusion for each country. These implications can be used as back data for national R&D strategy that need to create optimal effects within limited national R&D resources. Finally, the variable development for the two stage network analysis of knowledge diffusion and application stages suggests implications in that it suggests a method of evaluating R&D activities in a new aspect different from the existing R&D efficiency analysis.