The Spanish Think Tank on Nanotechnology has thunk, and this appears to be the result, although from this picture we are not entirely convinced that they had their minds on the job.
For non Spanish speakers, the momentous decision taken was to set up an observatory to monitor nanotechnology, with the aim of lifting Spain from the bottom of Europes nanotechnology spending table though projects presumably funded by the government and the European Commission. Or in other words doing nothing unless some public funding is forthcoming while pinching a French idea from four years ago.
Come on Spain! If this is the best that Europe’s fourth largest economy can can come up with, five years after the rest of the world first heard the N-word, then you will be slipping down the economic league table too. Taking eighteen months over forming a committee to set up a meeting to organise the think tank to form a committee to chose someone to type nanotechnology into google.es makes the glacial pace of other nanotechnology initiatives, for example in the UK, look positively sprightly by comparison. We suggest that some better thinkers need to be placed into this particular tank.
As a dispairing representative of one Spanish technology company told us I am ashamed that the future of Spanish technology is left in the hands of these idiots.