Last week in Euroland, it was interesting to see that, although the big companies seem to be calling the shots on Euro-R&D, the kind of R&D the electronics industry will increasingly be doing is well suited to small companies - i.e. software.
The annual end of term report on pan-European chip R&D, which used to be held by MEDEA+, is now being continued under MEDEA+'s successor programmes - ENIAC and CATRENE. Last week, the meeting was held in
"Now, one third of the system cost is software", said Alain Dutheil, CEO of ST-NXP Wireless and Chairman of the EC R&D body AENEAS, "by 2012, 50 per cent of the cost of systems solutions will be software."
These days, when Euro-companies and Euro-governments talk about R&D, they mean D more than R. Their R&D programmes are pretty much indistinguishable from product development.
Here it seems is a great opportunity for
Software creation is nothing except intellect and imagination. The only cost is people. If the Euro-authorities want to galvanise
A European high-tech industry based on entrepreneurial small companies and individuals,
organised and funded by Brussels to undertake great projects, would be a most effective way for Europe to counter the competitive threats of the USA and Asia.
'galvanised' 'organised by Brussels' and 'effective' I think you have to choose - you can either have galvanised and effective or you can have organised by Brussels but they don't really go together. Unfortunately, next year they could be the only game in town.
My suggestion: shut down all the EU research programs and the agencies that run them. Take the budget, give 1/4 of it back to the taxpayer, give the second 1/4 to University research funding bodies like EPSRC. Then place the other half with the small group of specialist techology VC firms and angel groups (not city private equity and merchant banks!) who at the moment can't access funding from the financial industry. Give the VCs three simple rules: invest in the EU, invest only in technology and make money for the taxpayer.
Same solution should apply to the alphabet soup of UK government agencies 'supporting' the tech sector. They spend 90% on overhead, pensions, property development, lawyers and 10% on actual support. You could easily half the budget and double the money actually reaching the startup companies.