There’s no question that the US are in trouble. 50% of the US mortgage banks do not run under Federal control – no further comment on this.
The car industry is one of the industries that obviously have been hit hardest after the banks. Europe and the rest of the world can feel it and the situation will worsen. With the car industry a range of drive by wire suppliers and other related businesses will suffer.
The ICT industry in general will suffer, this time, unlike after the millennium, it is those companies that so far have been immune to new economy stuff. Austria’s ICT industry has quite a share in industrial ICT on an international level.
But, and that’s my point, if we all scream crisis, we will of course have one. Continue reading ‘A Crisis is a Crisis is a Crisis – is it?’
The phenomenon of technology transfer has become increasingly important for the economic and social development in the European regions. The critical issue is connecting those who produce knowledge and those who might be in the need of it. What is required is to build a meeting place between enterprises and universities, as well as other public R&D centers.
When it comes to catalyzing innovation within the sphere of SME (small and medium enterprises), the aspect of regionality appears to be the most essential. These small companies cannot afford to launch their own exclusive research, but on the other hand they can launch a productive and fruitful cooperation with local universities and R&D centers.
Based on the experiences from the ten-years existence of the knowledge transfer center in the Graz region of Austria, we can divide the companies into three segments based on their aptitude to join and profit from the regional knowledge centers.
Continue reading ‘Technology transfer: which companies are most suitable?’
This post refers to more recent ones on clusters. I didn’t follow the usual comment path as this text is simply too long. Not only “Brussels” is speaking a lot about clusters, most European governments do as well without looking into the specifics of what “cluster” means for individual industries and what is to be expected by their creation.
A cluster is definitely not just a heap of companies piled upon each other in one spot under the motto “collaborate!”
Clusters are complex networks with different points of departure and different operative practices, depending on sector and target.
Continue reading ‘Cluster Discussion & Speak Brusselese: Details Outwit Strategies’
Here are a couple of upcoming events which may be interesting for CITT project partners as well others.
The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) has organised an information event called “Förderungen für innovative Regionen”, mainly for Austrian companies and institutions, about the possible support for innovative regions in Vienna. This event takes place on November 11, 2008.
I agreed with the FFG representatives that we will have the opportunity to present the CITT project, as we were part of the first round of projects supported within FP7 Regions of Knowledge. One of the goals of FFG/Austrian Research Promotion Agency is to promote European programmes, and they also provide their services as Austrian national info point for FP7.
Continue reading ‘European Intercluster and other events’
the CEE-ClusterNetwork is one of several initiatives concerning cluster development within Europe, an FP6 project focused mainly on future innovation and cluster policy. One aim is also the mobilisation and support of regional innovation policy actors to carry out and design co-operation activities together with other competent public authorities.
Thus, certain correlation with the CITT project is clearly visible. Another connection is the geographical focus, as the consortium of Central and Eastern Europe cover parts of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland and Italy.
I participated at the cross-border workshop for cluster managers of this project in Vienna in September last year. During this interesting meeting I had the possibilities to get familiar with the project and for example participate at the brain storming sessions on project ideas, such as for example cluster academy, strategy for twin cluster, joint marketing activities related to cluster building.
Continue reading ‘Survey on skills and training needs of European cluster managers’
Encouraged by recent postings and an interesting article from Romania from 2006 http://mises.org/story/2371 I want to join the brain drain debate.
Austria has been suffering from brain drain during the entire 2nd half of the 20th century but has recently introduced measures to get good people back: An organisation called BrainPower www.brainpower-austria.at, a department of Austria’s research funding and promotion agency FFG www.ffg.at is offering support for researchers who are interested in getting back to Austria (jobs, accommodation, travel costs, information etc.). They work closely together with an organisation called ASCINA, Austrian Scientists and Scholars in North America, an initiative of the Office of Science and Technology (OST) at the Austrian Embassy in Washington D.C. www.ascina.at, this, because a major part of the brains that emigrated have drained to North America.
Networking plus practical support obviously help, as their statistics show, but the best proof for real breakthroughs is “give them appropriate playgrounds, and they come back themselves”.
Continue reading ‘Brain Drain: The Austrians have suffered and learned’
Today I would like to present you one Viennese research institution and one company (Competence Center) successfully involved in R&D-activities. Both of them are quite important for our city.
These two organizations have an excellent international reputation and both of them are running successful cross-border projects and have finalized some very interesting ones in the past.
Continue reading ‘Vienna, Austria – A Spot of Excellence’
The European Comission published its Progress Report on the Single European Electronic Communications Market in 2007. It contains a comparison of fixed broadband penetration rates together with the speed of progress. Although in January 2008, Austria has a penetration rate near to the EU27 average of 20%, the country also showed the smallest increase in penetration rate over the previous year.
However, these figures may also be misleading due to the ongoing evolution in broadband technologies. Continue reading ‘Broadband penetration - Is Austria lagging behind?’
Vienna’s position as CEE’s ICT capital has suffered quite a blow by IBM’s announcement to move its CEE headquarters to Prague. Beware: I love Prague, I live there, but the decision’s wording “to move growth market activities to growth markets” sounds rather shallow if applied to the Czech Republic. Sure the country has growth potentials that the EU15 have lost long ago, but then why not move IBM CEE to Ukraine or Russia right away?
Continue reading ‘IBM CEE: Na shledanou to Vienna’
Yesterday, I was a speaker at the Digital Cities conference hosted by the city government of Schwechat, a town located just outside of Vienna next to the airport. The topic was “Is the digital city prepared for the impact of new technologies?” (That was my rough translation from the German.) I was asked to give a talk entitled Social networks: how social is a blog?
On the train back from Vienna I got to thinking about conferences. I’ve attended many. Over the years I’ve developed a good strategy for getting the most out of any conference. I follow three rules …
Continue reading ‘Three rules for getting the most out of any conference’
Loading ...
Recent Comments