VCS

The “Value of Corporate Science” (VCS) project aims to provide a better understanding of whether and how European business companies invest in fundamental research as part of their innovation strategy and overall performance. In particular, the VCS project will investigate three dimensions of firm performance that may be affected by corporate science, namely: the stock market evaluation of private firms turning public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) (WP.1 and WP.2); the stock market evaluation of large, established companies active in technology markets (WP.3) and the competitive advantage and organizational resilience value, as derived from corporate research in times of crisis (WP.4). To these purposes, the VCS project will collect and link different types of firm-level data such as: scientific publications (from Web of Science-WOS), patents (from Orbit and PATSTAT/EP Register database), IPO announcements and outcomes, stock prices and valuations (from EURIPO, Datastream and BVD Orbis IP); patent transactions and M&As (from BVD Orbis IP and Zephyr) and de-listings, by type. The VCS project requires expertise in a wide range economics field (corporate finance, innovation, and strategic management), in line with the composition of the team. The VCS project will provide a deeper understanding of the incentive structure for firms to engage in fundamental research and eventually publish their results, thus helping both entrepreneurs and managers about to better understand how to get more value from their scientific disclosure activities. Finally, the VCS project’s results will help policy makers to design interventions supporting firms' R&D and value capture efforts.