5. Activity types and network structure
A variable called activity type assigns each organisation to one of five classes:
- private companies (PRC)
- higher education establishments (HES)
- research organisations (REC)
- public sector (PUB)
- other (OTH).
These classes have very different network behaviour. Private companies make up the majority of Horizon 2020 participants, but they are underrepresented in the stable partnership network and its giant component. They are not represented at all in the maximal k k-core, the innermost cohesive structure we call the Death Star of Horizon 2020.
| Activity type | Overall | With stable partners | In giant component | In Death Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRC | 10,342 (62%) | 1,375 (40%) | 1,243 (39%) | 0 (0%) |
| HES | 1,399 (8%) | 631 (18%) | 606 (19%) | 14 (64%) |
| REC | 1,931 (11%) | 758 (22%) | 739 (23%) | 6 (27%) |
| PUB | 1,328 (8%) | 362 (10%) | 315 (10%) | 0 (0%) |
| OTH | 1,931 (11%) | 288 (8%) | 235 (7%) | 1 (4%) |
Private companies build fewer partnerships than other types of organisations in Horizon 2020. They participate in fewer projects, with fewer partners. More significantly, they have fewer stable partnerships. The following table concentrates on the giant component of the stable partnership graph, that represents the "Horizon 2020 scene" of the regular participants. All values express averages. The EC contribution column is expressed in millions of Euros, and is the average sum of the contributions received by organisations of that type across all projects it participated in.
| Activity type | partners | stable partners | projects | EC contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRC | 51.6 | 6.1 | 4.3 | 1.6 |
| HES | 187.9 | 25.9 | 22.3 | 11.2 |
| REC | 113.0 | 18.3 | 10.6 | 4.9 |
| PUB | 64.2 | 13.8 | 5.5 | 1.6 |
| OTH | 55.5 | 9.18 | 4.5 | 1.4 |
The averages hide that private companies are disproportionately more likely to have only one or two stable partners. 424 out of 1,375 (almost one in three) have only one; but only 87 out of the 631 universities (less than one in seven) are in the same position.
