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For the second year in a row, Germany was this week declared world leader in solar photovoltaics. The country has also led Europe in nurturing start-ups in other areas of cleantech. But now funding for new companies may be drying up.

Entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders attending the third annual Science|Business Academic Enterprise Awards (ACES) conference earlier this month called on European politicians and universities to do more to support entrepreneurship on campus and help seed a new generation of world-class technology companies.

The governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has elected Alexander von Gabain, founder of the Austrian vaccines company Intercell as its next chairman.

The European University Association (EUA) has published a report on how to ensure the financial sustainability of Europe’s 5,000 universities in the face of public sector cuts.

The arrival of European Research Council (ERC) grants means that for the first time there is competition between European Universities in different member states. “Before they couldn’t care less; they were stuck in their own country,” Helga Nowotny, President of the ERC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, DC. The arrival of competition is forcing universities to change, and do more to support younger scientists.

A shift in the global research landscape will reposition the US as a major partner, but no longer the dominant leader, in science and technology research in the coming decade. However, the US could benefit from this research shift if it adopts a policy of knowledge sharing with the growing global community of researchers.

The many obstacles in the way of campus start-ups range from mundane rivalry over laboratory space, to a lack of a top-level commitment to promoting technology transfer and entrepreneurialism. This year's ACES winners met with EIT to discuss experiences and share insight.

University technology transfer and commercialisation is a delicate balancing act, calling for scale and a global outlook on one hand, and intimate knowledge and continuous contact on the other, says Keith Robson, Chair of SETsquared.

DFG has agreed to set up nine new research units in topics ranging from engineering to social sciences. Five of the new groups will be involved in international projects.

A new design of optical fibre network developed in an EU Framework 7 project, was unveiled last week. The design will mean faster networks with a wider reach.

The European aerospace group EADS announced it is to collaborate with scientists at Glasgow University, to work on making the use of solid hydrogen for fuelling planes a commercial proposition.

A total of 52 new research labs and research programmes have been selected to share an investment of Euros 340 million, in the first step of a public research funding bonanza that will pour in Euro 22 billion raised on the bond markets to create an elite cadre of universities in France