New agendas need new visions
“Physicists are doing very, very well, ” says Richard Brook, sitting in the chief executive’s office at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. “We put more of ...
A tale of two councils
Two of the acronyms most frequently used by physicists in the UK celebrate their fourth birthdays this month. Between them the EPSRC and PPARC fund most of the research projects performed by physicist...
Defence diversification agency to be created
DERA has an annual turnover of £1bn, 90% of which comes from the Ministry of Defence, and is active in many areas of physics including semiconductors, materials and optics. The agency would encou...
UK science minister praises physics
The UK government is committed to basic science, said Battle. “The ongoing comprehensive spending review gives us the opportunity to spell out our commitment to the science base, ” he adde...
France fails to innovate
The figures are from the French Science and Technology Observatory. “The connection between research and innovation is really bad, ” says Rémi Barré, director of the observatory,...
Germany predicts future markets
The “Delphi 98” report contains the views of more than 2000 experts from industry, research and education, who were asked to predict what they thought would be the most important developme...
US prepares to go beyond the Endless Frontier
The committee was set up by Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House of Representatives, to update the famous 1945 report by Vannevar Bush, The Endless Frontier, that has formed the basis of US science pol...
Shake-up in American science
Lane has been director of the NSF since October 1993. Prior to that he was a professor of physics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in physics from the Univ...
Ministers cut Framework budget
The European Commission had proposed a budget of ECU 16.3 billion for the framework, which will run from 1998 to 2002, while the European Parliament had voted for ECU 16.7 billion. The figure agreed b...
Clinton backs US research
The good news is contained in the budget request for the fiscal year 1999 (FY99), which begins in October. The National Science Foundation will receive 10% more than this year, while science and techn...
