We are not sure whether the growing number of comparisons between the European Commission and a monolithic Soviet style bureaucracy are a a positive thing, but the Financial Times, ahead of this weeks Economic Summit, makes the comparison in an article looking at Europe’s poor record of encouraging innovation and meeting the wildly optimistic goals of the Lisbon Agenda (R&D spend up to 3% of GDP and Europe to be the worlds most dynamic knowledge based economy by 2010).
Amongst the tales of woe, of red tape, late payments, figures for R&D spending being plucked out of the air one bright spot shines through, the city of Grenoble and Minatec, something entirely funded by the region, private industry and the French state.
The message to Brussels from the new and enthusiastic Eastern European members is clear, as Tamás Ladoméry of Hungarian medical device company Diatron explains Today people should understand that there is no science without economic feasibility. A tad harsh perhaps, but throwing money in the general direction of science will not solve Europe’s twin dilemmas of innovation and productivity, nor shoud the blame for Europes woes be laid at the feet of the scientific community.