Despite the attention given to corporate innovation activities, there are but a few research groups working on analyzing collaborative innovation activities according to size, sector, technology intensity, financial group attachments, and absorption capacity. The empirical part will consist in identifying the determining factors for innovation through collaboration among French companies and what determines their choice regarding the company they set up a partnership with. This will be done using the European innovation survey (“enquête communautaire sur l'innovation –CIS-“) to carry out a dynamic estimate over the 2004-2010 period. We will thus test the stability of the relation (in time and space) between the different characteristics (general, sectorial and absorption capacity) of the French company and the type of cooperation with the various partners.
