Jan. 2, 2003 — With countries around the world racing to position themselves for the small tech explosion, the issue of research funding is generating increasing scrutiny. Is the United States funding this new field sufficiently? Is Europe keeping pace with the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative budget? Is Asia? And do figures matter that much, anyway?
A recent report by the European Nanobusiness Association has tried to answer some of these questions. In a document titled, “It’s Ours to Lose: An Analysis of the European Union Nanotechnology Funding and the Sixth Framework Programme,” the ENA argues that European spending will probably be twice that of U.S. funding in 2003 if both EU and national nanotech budgets are factored in.
Tim Harper, the association’s executive director, said a comparative report had become necessary because so many people were asking for figures. “The one thing everyone wants to see — journalists, entrepreneurs and scientists — is funding levels,” he said.
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In the report, U.S. funding for 2003 is estimated at around $700 million and Japan’s at around $1 billion. It says that European spending, though officially $680 million over four years, may in fact reach as high as $3.3 billion from 2003 to 2006, the duration of the EU’s Sixth Framework program for research and technological development.
But nanotech insiders point out that comparing European and U.S. figures at face value may be misleading. The numbers don’t show the whole story. And with European and American funding systems organized differently, looking only at dollars and euros may be a little like comparing apples with oranges.
Firstly, though the economic weight of the 15 EU countries and of the United States is roughly comparable, they don’t operate the same way. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, shouldn’t be likened to the U.S. federal government. And their nanotechnology budgets shouldn’t be measured against one another, either.
“The National Nanotechnology Initiative provides the largest amount of public funds in the United States, whereas in Europe, EU funding represents only a small part of research funds,” said Mike Roco, senior adviser at the National Science Foundation. In fact, the European Commission’s research funding represents about 4 percent of total European public research budgets. “So the study paints only a partial picture of the current situation,” he added.
To make a more accurate comparison, one would have to add up the nanotechnology budgets of the European Union, European national governments and various regional governments in Europe. This total figure would then have to be compared with the funding from the U.S. federal government, states and regional or municipal governments. It would be an arduous, if not impossible, task and unsurprisingly, no one has yet taken it on.
Another factor further skews the comparison. Research funds are attributed differently on each side of the Atlantic. Unlike the United States, EU funds are reserved for the marginal costs of specific projects, not infrastructure or the salaries of professors. That means the EU will pay for a Ph.D. to work on a project, but will not cover the salaries of professors or the cost of a new clean room. Individual countries, through their state-sponsored research institutions, shoulder these.
And money may not be the best way to gauge the vitality of nanotechnology developments in either region. Ramon Compano of the European Commission’s nanotechnology division, said it’s not about how much money you have, but how effectively you use it. “It makes more sense to look at patents, publications and education, which are fruits we will only collect in a couple of years.” State research budgets give an indication of financial resources available, not of how judiciously these funds are used or their end result.
Furthermore, state research funding is only one of the engines that will propel the nanorevolution forward. Corporate research investments have a big role to play and should be tabulated if any transatlantic comparisons are to be valid. But much of the private investment remains shrouded in secrecy, with corporations wary of showing their hands to competitors.
“Corporate budgets, especially those from large materials groups,” shouldn’t be ignored if comparisons between the U.S. and the Europe are to be made, said Christian Joachim, director of France’s National Center for Scientific Research in Toulouse. “Few of these large companies are European,” even if some of their research is conducted in Europe.
For some observers, it is still far too early to worry about one region getting ahead of the other in this emerging field. Most of the research taking place now remains in the precompetitive phase. This means resources can be leveraged to make the money go further.
“We don’t look at European (nanotechnology) spending as economic competition for us,” said U.S. nanoguru Roco. “We are looking for partners in precompetitive research and from our point of view, the more research there is in Europe, the more partners and collaborations we can set up.”