-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
EC Increases Tech R&D Funding
April 21, 2009 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
By Jason Palmer, BBC News PRAGUE The European Commission announced a large initiative to fund high-risk information and communication technology (ICT) research, focusing on artificial intelligence and improved robotics. It will increase funding of these future and emerging technologies (FET) by 70% by 2013 to 170m euros annually.
The commission, making the announcement at the first European Future Technologies Conference, will increase funding by 20% year-on-year in FET until 2013, and is inviting member states to match the growth. The FET initiative within the commission's ICT funding is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
The commission notes that a number projects that have come from the FET program have translated into tangible economic benefits. There is also a history of academic kudos that come from considered, high-risk study. Recipients of FET funding in the past include Nobel Prize winners Theodor Hansch, Albert Fert, and Peter Grunberg.
European Commissioner for Information, Society and Media, Viviane Reding, said that technology can revitalize the economy, improve productivity, and boost innovation and job growth.Beyond the ultimate economic drive to fund such research, the conference emphasized the inherent interdisciplinary nature of such research pursuits as artificial intelligence or the reverse-engineering of complex networks and simulated brains. The commission's initiative urges more flexibility for young researchers working on FET projects to move around, both between countries and between disciplines.
Jason Palmer is a science and technology reporter for BBC NewsTo read his full report, click to EU funding push in blue-sky tech.