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Policy Brief 2008/03 Europe's R&D: Missing the Wrong Targets? This Policy Brief address two challenges: First, Europe is failing to live up to the target set in the Lisbon agenda to increase public and private-funded investment in R&D to 3 percent of GDP. Can Europe catch up? Second, since countries have different industrial specialisations, do targets for business funded R&D investment make any economic sense? [download the report] THE AUTHOR Bruno van Pottelsberghe [meet Bruno] POLICY BRIEFS A Tail of Two Countries[read it] Europe's R&D: Missing the Wrong Targets?[read it] Is Structural Spending on Solid Foundations?[read it] Financing Europe's Fast Movers[read it] Why Europe is not Carbon Competitive[read it] Why Reform Europe's Universities?[read it] Is Europe Ready for a Major Banking Crisis?[read it] Global Imbalances: Time for Action[read it] A Better Globalisation Fund[read it] Global Governance: An Agenda for Europe[read it] A Primer on Innovation and Growth[read it] Single Market Trails Home Bias[read it] Farewell National Champions[read it] Welcome to Europe[read it] Last Exit to Lisbon[read it] The Euro: Only for the Agile[read it] Global Current Account Imbalances: How to Manage the Risk for Europe[read it] Globalisation and the Reform of European Social Models[read it] Bruegel Rue de la Charité 33 B-1210 Brussels Belgium +32 2 227 4210 info@bruegel.org

The New Growth Engines Initiative reported their plan to the president of Korea, Lee Myung-bak on Sept. 22.

the initiative has selected 22 projects in six areas - energy and environment, transportation systems, new information technology, new integrated industries, bio-industry and knowledge-based services.

However, the growth of the Korean economy has been relatively slow during the last decade because it is facing strong international challenges. Industry leaders are struggling to develop the new "Blue Ocean" in the years to come. Unemployment among the younger generation is serious, and the proportion of retirees has become bigger. Another challenge is the global warming and energy shortage problem.

its annual survey on the growth and impact of collaborative Internet applications

Internet application usage is at 97%, up from 85% in 2007 73% of IT managers report at least one security incident as a result of Internet application usage 37% of companies report an instance of non-compliance; 27% report accidental data leakage Largest companies project $125K monthly to remediate Internet usage related security, compliance and data leakage issues

51% of end users access social media sites at least once per day 79% of employees use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube) at work for business reasons

TO SEE the geography of the technology industry, crack open an Apple iPhone. Although the firm that sells it is American, it provides none of the physical innards. The components are almost entirely Asian: the screen is mostly from Japan, the flash memory from South Korea, and it was assembled in China. Apple’s contribution is the design and software—and, importantly, integrating the innovations of others.

The most impressive growth has been in South Korea. In 2007 Samsung spent more on R&D than IBM. The company has jumped to second place in the number of patents granted by America’s patent office (just behind IBM); a decade earlier it was not even in the top ten. South Korean firms spend more on R&D as a percentage of sales (6.5%) than European and Japanese firms (around 5%), and are catching up with American ones (about 8%). South Korea now has more high-tech researchers than Britain and Germany.

The starkest shifts are in computer services and manufacturing, where the roles of America and East Asia have diverged dramatically. The amount that American firms spend on research in computer services as much as trebled over the past decade. Japanese and South Korean firms, meanwhile, spend hardly anything developing services, and prefer to concentrate on more tangible, if less lucrative, hardware.

Investment in knowledge has grown at the same pace as GDP

In both Japan and the EU, R&D intensity (R&D expenditure relative to GDP) picked up in 2005 to 3.3% and 1.7%, respectively, following a drop in 2004. In the United States, R&D intensity declined from a peak of 2.7% in 2001 to 2.6% in 2006, mainly owing to stronger growth in GDP than in the other main regions. In 2005, China became the third R&D spender world wide (in purchasing power parity terms) after the United States and Japan, with growth of more than 18% a year in 2000-05.

Venture capital is a major source of funding for new technology-based firms and a decisive determinant of entrepreneurship and innovation. It represented about 0.12% of OECD-wide GDP in 2005, up from 0.10% in 2003. It was much higher in Nordic countries (and growing rapidly), but it still remains concentrated in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, these two countries attracted half of all OECD venture capital.

Alors que notre attention est monopolisée par la crise économique et financière, l'évolution technologique poursuit sa course effrénée et modifie en profondeur l'organisation des entreprises et le monde de l'offre. Selon le cabinet Forrester, trois tendances de fond vont transformer le secteur IT d'ici à 2015 : la globalisation 2.0 marquée par un rééquilibre des forces, le paradoxe d'une informatique à la fois omniprésente et invisible et la consumérisation de l'IT.

More than money: Building social capital

Deutsche Bank enhances its Corporate Social Responsibility programme / Management Board Chairman Josef Ackermann: "Social responsibility must be part and parcel of the way we do business."

"We do not consider our corporate social responsibility programme to be charity with our shareholder's money," said the bank's chief executive Ackermann, "but rather as an investment in our own future, as well as in the future of society. As a responsible corporate citizen, we want to create social capital to form a basis on which private capital can also flourish better.

What’s a Concept? Concepts may take the form of Ideas, Mockups or Prototypes. Ideas It all begins with an idea. A sentence, paragraph, or even bullet-points kick-start the process. Ideas can be simple and non-technical. It should be easy for anyone and everyone to help shape the future of the Web. So throw your notions, inspirations, dreams and visions out to the community. Mockups Turn your idea (or someone else’s) into an image, sketch or video. Words are great, but you know what they say about pictures. Mockups offer up a visual and communicate ideas in terms that are just a bit more polished and real. They draw the next person in, tempting them to pick up the concept and run with it. Prototypes A prototype is interactive. Feel, touch and play with developing concepts. Prototypes get ideas across by showing off the moving parts. They aren’t always fully functional or pretty, but they’re more than a static image or two. They’re a dress rehearsal of sorts, with minimal programming. Make a prototype in HTML, Flash, or whatever puts things into action.

Lego’s participative army marches on .. by Michel Bauwens

One of the highlights was Mark Hansen, director of Business Development at Lego, who has been focusing his life’s work on spurring co-creation processes between Lego as a corporate community and the legions of fans that are normally operating independently of the company.

Mark’s instinct go into the opposite direction of learning to tap further and further into it, and to develop mutually beneficial relationships.

Microsoft Innovation Center : au cœur de l’innovation tunisienne

Fruit du partenariat stratégique de Microsoft avec le gouvernement tunisien, le Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) tunisien est un espace de collaboration dédié au soutien de la croissance du secteur logiciel, à la stimulation de l’innovation et au développement du capital intellectuel. Créé il y a un an et demi, le MIC est à la fois porteur d’initiatives pour les startups, les SSII, les universités et le gouvernement. Leila Charfi, Directrice du MIC, et Hafedh Yahmadi, Developer & Platform Advisor, Microsoft Tunisie, rencontrés à l’occasion des Med-IT Tunis, dressent un premier bilan de cette initiative.

In the modern economy, there are four sources of demand (consumption, investment, government and exports) and two sources of supply (domestic production and imports). When a component of demand declines, supply will ultimately have to decline as well.

In the case of the U.S. economy now, the double-whammy of wealth shocks from the real-estate bubble and the stock-market crash has made consumers understandably cautious. Quite sensibly they want to consume less and save more.

Increasing exports would be great, but it's not going to happen. The rest of the world is having its own problems, so we are unlikely to see a big boost in demand for American goods.

The fundamental aim of the programme is to create an easily accessible and sustainable European Research & Development (R&D) support mechanism for businesses as well as encouraging them to create new economic activities. Also as part of the programme, enterprises will be assisted in promoting their technological and business development and internationalisation. The Eurostars Joint Programme does not intend to supplant existing national or EU programmes which support R&D performing SMEs in their innovation process. Instead, it is meant to complement them and achieve synergies with the relevant national research and innovation programmes. In so doing it will help realise the European research Area (ERA).

Business in Germany: Innovative – but little experimentation

The participating multinational companies ranked Germany as the third most innovative location in the world – beaten only by the US and China

These positive developments cannot mask the fact, however, that there is still a lack of bold entrepreneurs in Germany.

Live Web-casts of political rallies and street protests, like those this summer against U.S. beef imports, are common. And “netizens” are vigilant in their monitoring of politicians and the press.

But there is a downside. Internet bullying is a major problem. In 2005, netizens so harassed a girl who had not cleaned up after her dog that one newspaper called it “a kind of nationwide cyber lynching.” Today, many Koreans believe that Internet bullying caused the recent suicide of the famous actress, Choe Jin Sil

new legislation to increase Internet regulation

Les interactions sociales favorisent l'innovation L'élargissement du champ de la collaboration et l'adoption d'outils d'interactions sociales sont des facteurs prépondérant pour l'innovation des entreprises.

the government announced its "Green New Deal" project on Jan. 6.

The "Green New Deal" is an ambitious project designed to create 960,000 jobs by investing 50 trillion won ($36.4 billion) over the next four years

The Korean government has taken the position that this crisis is an opportunity to advance eco-friendly economics; by pumping investment into "green technologies," we will be both helping the economy and setting the stage for future economic growth.

The EU and its Member States must 'transform Europe's research labyrinth into a European Research Area open to the world, attracting the best brains and contributing to address global challenges', said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

world-class infrastructures

Our competitiveness, though, he added, is based on having a broadly educated work force, superb research universities, innovation-supportive taxes, immigration and regulatory policies, a productive infrastructure, and a culture that embraces hard work. "America is still the best place for innovation," said Carlson.

Closing the Innovation Gap

What I found missing in both conventions was a sense of priorities. Both Barack Obama and John McCain offered a list of good things they plan to do as president, but, since you can't do everything, where's the focus going to be? That focus needs to be on strengthening our capacity for innovation - our most important competitive advantage.