Biotechnology R&D in Europe
Ever increasing world competition in the biotechnology industry has led the European Commission, DG XII, to stress the importance of making the best possible use of resources available to the European biotechnology community. In order to avoid any unnecessary duplication of work and facilities in this field, the Commission has recently published a report entitled "Biotechnology Research and Development in Europe" which gives a brief summary of the key areas of academic and industrial research in 16 European countries. The aim of the report is to establish a core of information on which further activities could be based, such as identifying the specific areas of research where coordinating national efforts would be most useful. The report acts as a country by country guide on national research, giving a general presentation of each country's situation in biotechnology research and development, their political strategy and relative performance. Research and development programmes and activities which either focus on biotechnology or contain any important research components with relevance to biotechnology are listed. There is also an overview of research and development activities relevant to industrial biotechnology, including major companies, spending figures, numbers of researchers, and representative associations. For public biotechnology research and development activities, the major national research institutions and numbers of researchers are listed. The report also includes a directory of reference material for each country, composed of a selective list of important publications (reports, studies, directories) on each country's biotechnology strategies and activities. The report was prepared by the Coordination Group of the Biotechnology Committee who have contributed national information based on the principle that Member States would provide the type of information that they themselves would like to get from their partners.