The Economic Development Board of Bahrain and Kuwait Finance House have begun planning a $1 billion (US) Science and Technology Park in Bahrain. The park will be modeled on the Sophia Antipolis Technology Park in France, which is the largest of its kind in Europe and the second-largest technology park in the world, according to the European Commission’s PAXIS innovation program. The Kuwait Finance House has appointed Philippe Mariani, former director of the French park to oversee the new project.

 

Governor Urges Pension Fund to Invest in Emerging Tech Companies

Starting in January, a new advisory council within the Texas Governor’s Office will begin work on a long-term strategy to bolster the state’s economic competitiveness. The Competitiveness Council will be charged with designing an overall framework for cooperation between public and private organizations involved in economic development. Gov. Rick Perry will appoint the group’s members by the end of the year.

 

ANGLE, an international venture management and consulting company with broad experience in technology development initiatives at the regional and national level, has position openings for a consultant and a senior executive. These starting-level positions would assist ANGLE's U.S. Consulting and Management operation on domestic and international projects. Both positions require someone with a Ph.D.

Last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced the formation of the Governor's Council on Science and Biotechnology Development. The Council will strive to create a seamless system of innovation from the laboratory to the marketplace in rapidly developing areas of biotechnology — such as biopharmaceutical development, bioinformatics, genomics and nanotechnology.

Several warnings have been issued in recent years about U.S. dominance in the world's scientific and technological communities slipping: the number of science and engineering (S&E) doctorates awarded per capita; the dearth of women and minorities entering technical fields; the facility in which knowledge, companies and people can be transferred globally; scores on standardized math and science tests; and indicators for global entrepreneurship, to name a few.

Britain’s Pre Budget Report 2005, released Dec. 5, calls for the United Kingdom to double spending for stem cell research to £100M within the next two years and launch a number of new initiatives to sustain innovation and science.

In China, leaders of the rapidly growing nation dogged by soaring energy needs and unrelenting pollution problems made a commitment to double the nation’s use of renewable energy resources within the next 15 years.

BioMed SA, a recently founded technology council to promote the development of San Antonio’s health and bioscience community, selected Ann Stevens to serve as its first executive director.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents recently approved $15 million in funding for three programs that will support innovation and extraordinary effort among its faculty. Two of these programs will make awards for teaching excellence, one for faculty at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and the other for teaching at the system's other eight universities.

The Scottish Government announced last month a funding plan for the university system that directs more than 10 percent of current funding into a new Horizon Fund created to make targeted investments in research, technology transfer, and entrepreneurial development.

Bank bailouts may be capturing all of the headlines, but a new initiative from the European Union (EU) promises to inject a considerable pool of money during the downturn to accelerate the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The European Commission, as well as participants from the European research community and industry will contribute nearly 1 billion Euros (U.S. $1.28 billion) to the public-private partnership over the next six years to fund research.

Universities in Canada are a major component of the country's science and technology ecosystem, and as gauged by funding, they performed 36 percent of Canada's R&D activities in 2007. In the U.S. comparatively, universities accounted for 13 percent of the R&D performed in the country.

This week an estimated five million people will celebrate the first annual Global Entrepreneurship Week by taking part in one of the 13,000 events planned worldwide.

A recent Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) report ranks the U.S. last among 40 countries in progress toward creating an innovation-based economy over the past decade. The findings contradict several other studies that continue to depict the U.S. as the global leader in economic competitiveness. E-government, broadband, trade balance and corporate R&D were particularly weak areas for U.S. progress relative to other countries. ITIF warns that the U.S.