Technology policy in the European Union
As part of a series of publications on EU policy, Macmillan Press Ltd, have recently published a comprehensive guide to technology policy in the EU. The book focuses on public policies designed to promote technological innovation, and more specifically is concerned with collaborative efforts at the European level to promote innovation and its diffusion. The aim is to provide a comprehensive picture of the theory, practice and performance of collaborative RTD efforts at a European level. In addition, a broad view of the political economy of European technology is also offered. The book begins with a description of the history of research and development and early attempts at European collaboration. The various models of technological change, political integration and EU policy making are also described, giving an essential background to understanding EU technology policy. This is followed by a description of the origins and development of the EU's RTD Framework Programmes and the apparent contradiction between competition and collaboration at the heart of the 1992 project. A chapter is devoted to describing the EUREKA programme for cooperation between European firms and research institutes in the field of advanced technologies and its complementary role to the RTD Framework Programmes. Subsequent sections of the book are devoted to developments in the 1990s and the difficult negotiations for the Fourth Framework Programme, linked to the events surrounding the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. The analysis is then brought up to date with a chapter entitled "A European technology Community" which details aspects such as trends in Framework Programme expenditure, breakdown by Member State, linkages and participation, as well as an introduction to the new innovation debate and the Fifth RTD Framework Programme. The following chapter augments the economic and political focus of the book, with a detailed policy analysis of RTD decision-making. The concluding chapters are devoted to what has been achieved to date within the European technology programmes and a final assessment and critique of the current direction of European technology policy. The question of whether the policy dilemmas posed by the new political economy of technology change are amenable to solutions at European level are also addressed.