Spanish access to universities’ public knowledge: geographical patterns

Abstract

References in patent documents are information sources about access to public knowledge, on which the invention’s novelty, or lack thereof, can be justified. Usually references are broken down by type of cited literature, but we do it in a more original way: by type of cited institution. We focus on universities and compare Spain with the European Union 27 at national, regional and institutional levels. Access to public knowledge in Spain is similar to the overall European trends: highly internationalised with American universities being the most accessed. But Spain presents some idiosyncrasies: infrequent access to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and frequent access to Dutch and Israeli universities. Also access to universities from the same region occurs more often than in other Member States (especially in regions other than Madrid). In reference to the situation in other EU members, access to Spanish universities from Germany is relatively low and the only university with citations above the European average is the Autonomous University of Madrid. We offer policymakers some recommendations for modifying these characteristics according to certain desirability criteria.