larger firms are more likely to be partnering for innovation than smaller firms while the same holds for exporters and crossborder traders compared to domestic firms exporters have a systematically higher rating in all kinds of business innovation attributes than crossborder traders while the latter display higher ratings than domestic firms these relationships are focused heavily on clientscustomers and suppliers with collaboration generally much less widespread for other partners overall international partnerships are more widely reported than crossborder relationships for links with suppliers higher education institutes intermediaries and business services