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’
A vital step has been taken forward in promoting R+D, for Hungary, for Central Europe and the entire European Union. Budapest has been chosen to host the European Institute for Technology and Innovation (EIT). Work on the project, backed by a budgeted €308.7 million ($483.5 million), is due to start later this year. It will be the European organization with the aim to make Europe competitive on the world market and to push EU on the economic growth track.
Continue reading ‘Budapest to host European Institute for Technology and Innovation’
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’
This post is somehow a free analysis of my observations, and you, dear readers and bloggers, can verify together with me if my observations and conclusions apply.
Recently I commented IBM CEE’s move from Vienna to Prague. I said that this move has no reasonable background, as the Czech Republic is no low-cost low-wage country anymore and if IBM wants growth, why not go to Russia right away.
At the same time it was announced that Siemens rail vehicles is closing down in Prague. No tit-for-tat feelings. Everybody who has his/her eyes open can see that classical production moves east.
Yesterday I attended an event where one of Austria’s top ICT researchers, Bruno Buchberger (one of the top three worldwide in Symbolic Computation) presented his new master studies program mainly targeted to foreigners as in Austria they do not have enough top qualified computer science students.
Continue reading ‘Are we trapped in a vicious loop?’
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’
Given, in some countries, difficulties faced by SMEs to their participation in European projects, the question whether European mechanisms are adapted or not to SMEs is more and more frequent.
One answer consists of saying that FP regulations are too complicated or that EC procedures are too lengthy and bureaucratic. Besides, SMEs often had bad experiences from previous projects given EC requirements. On SMEs’ activities’ side, it is often said that companies are too active in areas, which are not covered by FP projects or that companies do not have the capacity to prepare project proposals.
Another type of answer can be given, based on companies’ competitiveness and on a better understanding of FP projects’ objectives.
Continue reading ‘Are current European mechanisms adapted to SMEs?’
InterSoft, a.s., was established in 2001 as a company operating in information technologies.
The basic idea in establishing the company was the association of partners of the international R&D project Esprit 29065 “Web in Support of Knowledge Management in Company (KnowWeb)” supported by EU in the 4th Framework Program. The company was founded with the intention to build on international experiences of software development for domestic or foreign customers, to exploit the status and international business contacts of partners and to capitalize the competitive advantage resulting of this association.
In 2004 the company changed the scope of its business activities with more accent on modern information and communication technologies, and with a view to provide new types of services in this field. The change was related to Slovakia’s entry into the European Union and to the resulting global context for the company. Continue reading ‘InterSoft: Mastering the FP’
The European Commission organised on Friday 12 November 2004 a high level workshop to present the results of the study on good public national and regional policies in support of the competitiveness of the ICT sector, in which LL&A participated as a consortium member along with Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research (FhG-ISI - Germany) and the Strategy, Technology and Policy Institute of the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO-STB). Continue reading ‘Improving the competitiveness of the European ICT sector: high level European workshop on good public national and regional policies’
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