An OECD cross-country study of innovation at the firm level showed that collaboration is an important part of the innovation process: in 16 out of 18 countries, firms that collaborated on innovation spent more on innovation than others. This suggests that collaboration is unlikely to be undertaken mainly as a cost-saving measure, but instead to extend the scope of a project or to complement firms’ competences (OECD, 2009a). Moreover, available evidence suggests that international collaboration has increased over time, in terms of scientific collaboration as well as of international knowledge flows (Figure 2.6). This may reflect the higher rate of new product development in large firms as well as easier access to partners and more resources to engage in such relations. In the same way, SMEs which are part of a group tend to collaborate more frequently on innovation than independent ones, although still less than large firms (OECD, 2010a). Data refer to 2004-06 or nearest available years.