A bigger Europe in a smaller world
This issue of eIQ focuses on how Europe’s R&D community should respond to the challenges of increasing competition and the global financial crisis. Much of the material is drawn from this year’s Annual Conference, where members and guests focused on the emerging opportunities in central and eastern Europe as well as the need to shift to more collaborative and sustainable forms of development.
Our first feature develops the conference themes. The current crisis can be used as a catalyst for change, in the way that R&D is managed, the way in which it is commercialised, and the places where it is carried out. The feature also reports the experiences of managers who have found new sources of talent on Western Europe’s doorstep, in Hungary, Russia and Turkey, and further afield in China and India. A news item complements this with a look at the latest analysis of where R&D managers are choosing to invest their budgets.
Our second feature picks up on one of Europe’s key challenges over the next few years: finding enough people to do the R&D it needs. Drawing on discussions at the Annual Conference and recent research by the OECD, it suggests that a complex set of issues contribute to the declining number of Europeans entering science and technology careers. It also lists some of the things that industry can do to help counter the trend.
Our third feature provides some practical advice for facing these and many of the other challenges of R&D management. It’s a summary of a Management Brief (available on the website here) that EIRMA has just published on managing and assessing the effectiveness of R&D. The Brief brings together insights and advice distilled from many of the working groups, conferences, Round Tables and special interest groups that EIRMA members have attended over the years. Web links enable the reader to dig more deeply into each of the topics the Brief addresses, without losing sight of its wider context.
One of this issue’s Viewpoints and one of its news items picks up on conference discussions about doing things differently. In Bertrand Collomb’s Viewpoint, the former CEO of Lafarge, calls for a shift to a more sustainable form of development (an idea echoed by serial entrepreneur Lars Kolind in the first feature). And in the news story, Martin Schuurmans describes the ‘just do it’ mentality he is using to establish the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).
Two further Viewpoints, from Anneli Pauli at DG Research and Peter Dröll of DG Enterprise outline how Europe’s policymakers see the evolution of the political and legal contexts within which European research and innovation is carried out. Our IP focus is also about a contextual issue: how IP will be handled within EIT projects.
The issue is rounded out with more insights from Central Europe. The Day in the Life profiles Martin Navratil, who runs a contract research organisation in the Czech Republic. And our country profile looks at Hungary, which is eager to engage with the global R&D community and whose capital city Budapest is hosting the headquarters of the EIT.
Look out for the eIQ Action Points, bullet points to remember and implement in your organisation, embedded in each major feature and accessible from the links below. And why not try the ‘Your eIQ’ feature here. It lists all eIQ content by issue or topic, and will produce a PDF of your choice of eIQ articles on demand. The same page also hosts a function for searching prior issues of eIQ.
eIQ Action Points – turning global crisis into European opportunity
eIQ Action Points – attracting young people into science and technology
eIQ Action Points – designing assessments of R&D effectiveness
eIQ Action Points – setting IP regimes in EIT knowledge and innovation communities
eIQ Action Points – preparing for sustainable development
eIQ action Points – responding to the global economic crisis
eIQ Action Points – renewing Europe’s innovation strategy
eIQ Action Points – running a lightweight organisation in Eastern Europe
Leopold Demiddeleer, president
EIRMA