Viewpoint

Viewpoint: Compliance with the rules should be an obvious requirement for spin-out companies – so why has it tripped up many a budding entrepreneur? One expert in providing advice to start-ups gives his view

Daniel Zajfman, head of the Weizmann Institute, one of Israel’s leading research universities, explains his formula for promoting excellence. Fund researchers and give them full independence and control over the direction of their work, he says

EU competition policy is holding the continent back, Lithuania’s former prime minister Andrius Kubilius, now an MEP and sitting on the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy committee, tells Science|Business

Rosie Hicks, head of the Australian Research Data Commons shares her thoughts on open science. Europe and Australia should make sure their data sharing infrastructures can interoperate, she says

He’s spent five years as vice chairman of the European Parliament’s ITRE committee, overseeing Horizon 2020, but as he bows out, retiring MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel, tells Science|Business why he doesn’t believe in the R&D programme

Eight years on, the collapse of Nokia’s mobile phone business continues to reverberate. For Pekka Soini, head of the innovation and investment agency Business Finland, this shows the country can’t afford to put all of its eggs in one basket again

The OECD says big-company spending on R&D is more important than ever. EU policy makers must resolve how to work with industry in their next R&D programme.

As newer EU member states complain about brain drain, innovation expert Anita Tregner Mlinaric says increasing salaries is just one part of the answer to luring them home. National research ecosystems need to improve

We need to increase our ambitions for the Horizon Europe research programme, or risk falling behind the US and Asia, says Markus J. Beyrer, director-general of industry association BusinessEurope

Europe is putting informed opinion ahead of scientific evidence and precaution ahead of risk evaluation. Innovation will be the casualty