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Europe preaches the knowledge society, but its aversion to risk and reluctance to change has got to go, warns Esko Aho, former prime minister of Finland.

"There is a large gap between the rhetoric of a political system that preaches the Knowledge Society and the reality of budgetary and other priorities that have shown little shift in preparing to engage with it." Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland, in Creating an Innovative Europe, January 2006.

TU Delft ditched the usual model of outlicensing or seeking venture capital backing when it was looking to commercialise a novel wastewater treatment technology.

The European Commission is reviving a push for a common patent policy by asking for input of ideas from industry and stakeholders - a move that would renew a fierce debate that has spanned more than three decades.

Venture capitalists are once again funding nanotech start-ups, but their overall investment is small compared with government funding and corporate R&D spending, says to a new report.

In his first interview since taking up the job, Bruno van Pottelsberghe, the 37-year-old newly appointed chief economist at the European Patent Office, bemoans the failure to create a single EU-wide patent.

Scientific Generics, the technology consultancy based in Cambridge, UK, has exported its 'Innovation Angels' methodology to Oslo in a pilot programme supported by the industrial development agency Innovation Norway.

Lein Applied Diagnostics, a British company that develops blood glucose measuring for people with diabetes, has announced it has received further investment from its shareholder Seven Spires Investments. The company is seeking more investment to put a non-invasive blood glucose meter into clinical trials.

A new report from MIT suggests that universities should avoid concentrating too much on technology transfer.

Forget stem cells, pharmacogenomics and the next big cure - Michael Kenward gazes into his prophecy book to see what the physical sciences have in store for us this year. Or maybe not.

Sworn enemies within the technology and pharmaceutical industries are joining forces in a lobbying drive to persuade European Union lawmakers to change a draft law they say will stifle innovation in Europe by criminalising patent infringements, along with all forms of intellectual property infringements.