While Malta and Lichtenstein may be lagging in the euronanotech league (although probably not losing too much sleep over it) the Czech republic has just announced a major raft of funding in a program called “Nanotechnology for Society.”
The funding comes to some 85 million dollars over the next seven years, with 4.2 million available next year rising to an annual spend of over ten million dollars a year by 2012. Hold on, 6 x 10 plus 4.2 gives us a 20 million dollar shortfall, so we presume that somewhere along the line somebody has got a some numbers mixed up.
While it is a drop in the ocean by US standards, the amount of funding for a nation of ten million people eclipses the funding of larger countries such as Spain, and illustrates the seriousness with which eastern European countries are intent on leveraging both technology and flat rate taxes to compete on the global stage.