Fabrice Delaye

Its science fiction overtones once left robotics out of the funding mainstream and reliant solely on government funding. Not any more.

Like many others, the Swiss EPFL has grand plans to attract international companies. Its secret weapon: renouncing royalties in favour of overhead financing.

Intrapreneur Jean Stéphenne, manager of GSK Biologicals, has transformed the company’s research organisation and revolutionised the global vaccines market.

For two years France’s industrial innovation agency put large sums of public money into big company R&D projects. No longer.

Industrialist Adolphe Merkle is donating his fortune to bolster nanotechnology in his alma mater. His move may be replicated by other rich Swiss entrepreneurs.

The likes of Microsoft, Oracle and IBM are all queuing to access Aulas’ French software company Cegid’s specialist niches in the small and medium-size companies market.

France Angels, the country’s business angels’ network, has agreed to provide seed funding for the Microsoft start-up programme Idées.

Despite their new legal status, French universities are still characterised by overcrowded classrooms, underpaid professors and bureaucracy. So, plus ça change?

France’s new president aims to trigger the modernisation of its public research system with far-reaching reform of the university system.

As France goes to elect a new president, the leading engineering schools constituting ParisTech have obtained their first official recognition by the French government.