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Nanotechnology is turning R&D away from the individual-centered approach that is common in academic institutions and companies toward a cross-disciplinary, globally-networked approach.

In biomedicine, according to a report, the individual-based system produced an "explosion in research prowess" as "investigators directed postdoctoral fellows and graduate students pursuing independent research projects.

"While this 'siloed' approach has been highly effective at turning out generations of self-motivated investigators, today's research problems call for a shift in this paradigm."

Research problems today are so complex "that the solutions span several different scientific disciplines, many of which are still emerging. Nowhere is this situation more apparent than in the application of the relatively new science of nanotechnology to cancer research."

Nanotechnology is also encouraging cooperation between countries. 

Finland in 2007 announced a national program to partner with China on nanotechnology research and development.

India and Australia are collaborating on research for using nanotechnology in renewable energy and family planning methods, including prevention of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS.

In addition, the UN is trying to promote cross-country collaboration in nanotech research. Countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal have nanotech research groups that could be bolstered by international collaboration.

Taiwan has unveiled what government officials are calling Asia's biggest solar power plant in Kaohsiung County, which enjoys year-round sunshine.

The plant is equipped with 141 solar panels, enough to power a thousand homes, according to Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council.

Taiwan imports almost all of its energy and is seeking to tap into more renewable energy sources.

In the US, another mega plan, this one called the "world's largest solar project" involves 1.2 million solar panels spread across Northern California.

The panels would produce 420 megawatts of electricity, roughly the same as a medium-sized natural gas power plant, and enough to power 315,000 homes.

But the project is under critical attack by environmentalists.

"Green energy isn't always green...a huge solar project would harm a unique landscape and its wildlife," according to critics.

Another "largest in the world" solar project is planned for Northern Africa and could eventually supply 15% of Europe's energy, reports the Telegraph.

"Instead of using photovoltaic solar panels that absorb the sun's blistering rays, hundreds of giant mirrors would instead reflect the light and concentrate it - firing the sunbeams at a focal point, such as a tower next to the field of mirrors," according to the report.

The goal of what is called the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) is to begin building the huge solar plants within three years and delivering energy by 2015.

Some have suggested that the world's energy demands could be met by covering as little as one percent of the world's deserts, according to the report.

Currently, Europe dominates the world in sheer solar plant capacity. Spain hosts the largest solar farm in the world, which produces 60 megawatts.

R&D is increasingly crossing borders and linking globally, according to one of the findings in a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

"The mode of production of scientific knowledge has shifted from individuals to group, from single to multiple institutions, and from the national to the international level. Researchers are increasingly networked across national and organization borders," the organization wrote in its recently released "Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2009," which is designed to help policy makers gain insight into the trends shaping science and innovation.

 Moreover, international co-authorship has been growing as fast as domestic co-authorship. In 2007, 21.9% of scientific articles involved international co-authorship, a figure three times higher than in 1985.

The report, which is focused on innovation, also found that spending on innovation among the richest nations dropped early last year and began a slow recovery in 2009.

"Innovation" is not just a buzz word but is increasingly seen as an effective response to the huge challenges facing all countries such as global warming, the financial crisis and aging populations.

Information technology and green technologies are the areas of emphasis for innovation.

Innovation "will be one of the keys to emerging from the downturn and putting countries back on a path to sustainable -and smarter- growth," according to the report.

Smart grids are entering the implementation phase in several countries worldwide.

The US Department of Energy last week announced funding of $620 million for nationwide smart grid demonstration projects in cooperation with the private sector. If the projects are viable, they have the potential to scale in size.

The smart grid is essentially a system that monitors individual household electricity use, thus enabling efficient electricity distribution according to the needs of each household at any given time.

Ideally, with a Smart Grid in place, writes the Consumer Federation of California, "TVs will shut off when viewers leave the room, air conditioner and heater levels will be operated more efficiently based on time of day and climate...in hopes of reducing and/or better managing electricity usage.

"Home gadgets and appliances will be wirelessly connected to the Internet so consumers can access detailed information about their electricity use, and reduce their carbon footprint appropriately."

Smart Grid technologies could reduce electricity use in the US by more than 4 percent by 2030.  That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Around the world, other countries are also planning smart grid initiatives.

The UK government is about to announce plans for smart energy meters in every home, according to the Telegraph.

The UK is also planning to create an intelligent grid that will turn home appliances on and off automatically in order to take advantage of cheaper power during off peak times.

Japan, South Korea and Australia are among other countries with large-scale smart grid implementation plans.

In China, the state has given clear support for smart grid construction plans, according to CCID Consulting. But "it is not yet very clear about what construction model will be adopted, what the specific construction contents are and what the construction goal is."

Meanwhile, the progress toward efficient electricity distribution in industrialized countries highlights the lack of electricity altogether in least developed countries.

According to a UN report, 97 percent of people developing and least developed countries, such as Burundi, Liberia and Chad, don't have access to any electricity.

Globally, 1.5 billion people in developing countries lack access to electricity and about 3 billion people rely solely on solid fuels such as firewood and charcoal, for cooking.

R&D Investment Scoreboard," which looks at R&D investment patterns among the top 1000 EU companies and 1000 non-EU companies.

EU corporations, defined as companies having headquarters within the EU, saw a collective 8.1% increase in R&D investment compared to US firms at 5.7%, and the Japanese at 4.4%.

This is the second year that EU firms outspent those in the US in terms of R&D, according to the report.

Two EU companies, Volkswagen and Nokia, are among the top 10 R&D investors. Five are from the US, including Microsoft, General Motors and Pfizer. Japan had one, Toyota, which is at the top position worldwide.

R&D growth in the US is dominated by high R&D intensity sectors, which includes pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and IT, while R&D growth in the EU is more evenly spread across all sectors, the report said.

Pharmaceuticals & biotech remains the top R&D investment sector in the world.

Companies based in emerging economies continued to show the highest R&D growth, led by China with a 40% increase, India (27.3%), Taiwan (25.1%) and Brazil (18.6%).

Worldwide, corporate R&D investment is at 6.9%, compared with 9.0% in 2007.

Governments worldwide are pouring billions into specific technologies with the intent of sparking commercial success.

In the US, federal stimulus funding aims to drive technological innovation in clean technologies, smart-grid networks, biotechnology and other areas.

In addition, US business leaders are asking for a $15 billion increase in annual US energy R&D budgets.

Venture Capitalist Scott Anthony writes that large financial commitments intended to spark innovation can often have a restraining effect.

"These kinds of commitments paradoxically can make it harder for organizations to achieve their aim. In other words, the very act of making a serious financial commitment to solve a problem can make it harder to solve the problem."

Large financial commitments, he writes:

--lead people to chase the known rather than the unknown in order to justify the investment.

--lead people to frame problems in technological terms.

--lead innovators to "lock in fixed assets that make it hard to dramatically shift strategy."

He suggests "being frugal with financial resources but generous with human resources. What holds disruptive innovation back in most organizations isn't a lack of money. It is a lack of committed people, a surplus of inappropriate mindsets, and a whole series of standard operating procedures that run counter to the fast-cycle decision making, in-market learning, and iterative approach to strategy required for disruption."

The severe global recession has not stopped the world`s 1,000 largest publicly-traded corporations from increasing R&D spending in 2008, affirming the critical importance of innovation to their corporate strategies, according to a report by consulting firm Booz & Company.

R&D outlays for these companies rose by 5.7 percent to $532 billion, even as sales were up only 6.5 percent.

The increase in 2008 R&D spend was less dramatic than 2007's gain of 10 percent. But it was only slightly less than the 7.1 percent global five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for R&D.

Overall, more than two-thirds of companies maintained or increased their R&D spending in 2008, despite more than a third reporting that net income plummeted last year, according to the study.

Key findings of the report include:

Innovation is viewed as increasingly vital to corporate strategy. More than 90 percent of those surveyed say that innovation is critical as their companies prepare for the upturn, and 70 percent  state their companies are either maintaining or increasing their spending on R&D in 2009.

"Reducing efforts on innovation would be similar to unilateral disarmament in wartime," said Barry Jaruzelski, partner at Booz & Company. "Now is an opportune time to build advantage over competitors, especially weaker ones that may have to skimp on R&D for financial reasons."

Companies are spending more, but more wisely. Nearly half of the respondents report becoming more risk averse in their approach to innovation, changing the filters they apply when green lighting new R&D projects.

In 2008, two-thirds of R&D spending was concentrated in three industries: computing and electronics (28 percent), health (23 percent), and automotive (16 percent).

The top 10 global R&D spenders in 2008 were, in descending order: Toyota, Nokia, Roche Holding, Microsoft, General Motors, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis.

No industry felt the pain more than auto with nine out of the top 10 R&D spenders in the category cutting their innovation outlays in 2008.  Yet the remaining 40 percent of auto companies on the list increased spending slightly.

The Software and Internet sector, on the other hand, clearly has seen the recession as an opportunity. Eight out of the industry`s top 10 R&D spenders increased their R&D spending last year.

R&D spending in the computing and electronics industry was up more than 4 percent, though the proportion of companies that increased R&D spending was essentially unchanged from last year.

Every global region increased its spending. North American, European, and Japan-based companies retained their 94 percent share of the global 1000 innovation spend.

Every region, including China and India, increased its expenditures, though they did so at slower rates.

Japan upped its allocations by just 0.5 percent, Europe by 6.3 percent and North America, 6.5 percent.

Government policy apparently can foster emerging technologies if it is used like spice - applied in the right degree and the right measure.

Taiwan and Korea both had government support to grow their semiconductor industries. The European Union helped fund the original GSM standard initiative. The Brazilian state created an aerospace industry and the aircraft maker Embraer.

 By comparison, US government involvement in innovation efforts has been minimal -- until the recent stimulus funding package.

Craig Windram at Think Carbon looked at past initiatives where state policies have been used to support the development and commercialization of emerging technologies. He concluded that cooperation between the public and private sector, when done right, is the key to success.

He drew a dozen lessons. A few examples:

Long term planning, support and targets are crucial.
"Technology development and deployment take decades. The development of low emission vehicles (LEVs) in Japan began in the 1970s and continues today... Crucially, support from both the private and public sector needs to be sustained over the length of the technology development chain...In the U.S. the start-stop nature of government funding is widely cited as one of the factors that undermined the development of the renewables industry there."

Trying to pick technology "winners" is a fool's game.
"...literature is littered with examples of technologies that were adjudged to be the most promising technology, that received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, and that ultimately failed. Technology support programs have fared better where they have identified specific technology clusters, and then allowed 'the experts' - that is technology suppliers, customers, markets, researchers and technologists - to choose the technologies in which to invest."

Focus on areas of strategic importance or comparative advantage.
"Both the Japanese government and Japanese vehicle manufacturers considered the development of LEVs to be of strategic and economic importance to the country as a whole, and the support for this technology was deemed important to positioning Japanese vehicle manufactures ahead of their European and North American rivals. They built this new technology on the basis of the comparative advantage that they enjoyed in electric drive trains and battery technologies."

R&D and wait...doesn't work.
The `R&D and wait' policy approach -- public investment in R&D, and then let the markets take care of the rest -- does not work. "Either new technologies take a very long time to mature, or worse, new technologies are developed elsewhere as a result of the innovative activities and policies of other nations and it is businesses in those countries that capture the benefits of innovation."

China and India this week both reported a rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) as positive economic indicators also emerged in Russia, Germany, and other world regions, possibly signaling that a global economic recovery may be taking root.

China's FDI uptick was reported by that country's Ministry of Commerce which indicated that foreign direct investment rose by nearly 20 percent in September, to $7.9 billion for the month. It noted the two months rebound suggested that foreign investors in the China were becoming more confident.

According to a report published in the Shanghai Daily (www.shanghaidaily.com) quoting commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian, "market sentiment strengthened alongside growing evidence of China's economic improvement," while "more overseas enterprises are expected to join in the development of China against that backdrop."

Foreign direct investment measures the overseas money flow into China, which remains a top investment magnet. Double-digit growth in China halted in late 2007 as foreign firms cut back in the face of the global financial crisis. Foreign investment for the first nine months of this year totaled US$63.8 billion, a 14 percent decline from a year earlier, the Shanghai Daily reported.

In India foreign direct investment rose by 40.51 percent in August, with India receiving US$3.26 billion in FDI in August compared to t US$2.32 billion a year ago. The inflows in August were less than the July level of US$3.47 billion, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India.
 
Russia, hard hit by the global downturn, is also experiencing something of an economic upswing as reports circulating this week claim that industrial production is picking up. According to a government spokesman, industrial output in Russia grew 5.1 percent last month from August, when it recorded a 3.0 percent decline.

"Although we still cannot talk about transitioning to sustainable (manufacturing) growth, it's substantial growth," Andrei Klepach, deputy economy minister, who was quoted in a Reuters report which noted that "Russia's economy shrank sharply in late 2008 and the first part of this year when world demand for its oil and commodity exports plunged and the global credit crisis hit its banks."

Also reporting upbeat economic news this week is Germany where experts claim that Europe's largest economy is positioned for a return to growth next year following its worst recession in 60 years.

Output in 2010 should reach 1.2 percent according to the forecast from a group of influential economic institutes in Germany which recently upgraded its economic outlook.

"In the autumn of 2009, the lowest point of the worst global recession since World War II appears to be behind us. Much points to an economic recovery," the institutes said in a press statement. meanwhile, German chancellor Angela Merkel said this week that "the road ahead will be bumpy for Germany's economy but a recovery is on track," according to a published report by AFP.

According to the Dow Jones wire service the institutes forecast "is an improvement from the 6% contraction and 0.5% contraction they had previously forecast for 2009 and 2010, respectively."  It noted that a government official, who declined to be identified, said Wednesday the government will also forecast a 5% contraction for this year and 1.2% growth for 2010 when it presents its new predictions Friday.
 
The rebound in world trade in places like China and India will help the German recovery, along with growing stability in global financial markets.

Asia is set to become the main destination for the location of business R&D, overtaking Europe and the United States and leading the world in research, according to an EU taskforce report.
 
China and India will be global powers in R&D, accounting for around 20% of the world's research investment -- more than doubling their current share, according to "The World in 2025."

The report predicts a shift away from a brain drain that sends scientists from Asia to Anglo-Saxon countries. Instead, it forsees "a more balanced brain circulation of young researchers between regions of the world."

An estimated 645,000 Chinese students and 300,000 Indian students will study abroad in 2025, but the number of EU students and researchers going to China will also increase, according to the forecasts.

The assessment makes grim reading for Europeans given the focus political leaders are placing on creating an innovative knowledge economy. The EU is expected to fall further behind the US in new and emerging fields such as information technology and biotechnology.