Viewpoint

The world’s computers may be throwing out heat when active, consuming electricity on stand-by, and polluting the environment when dumped, but now the industry is on a mission.

As hearings begin in Brussels on a new European Commission, we offer four simple questions for the nominees involved in research and innovation.

Research money should promote excellence not cohesion, says Peter Frankenberg, Minister of Science, Research and the Arts for the German state of Baden-Württemberg.

It’s time for innovation to break free of the confines of the laboratory, says Diogo Vasconcelos of the Business Panel on Future EU Innovation Policy.

The reshuffling of EU portfolios brings ‘innovation’ to the policy fore – but we are waiting for details (if they exist) of how it will all work, write Richard L. Hudson and Nuala Moran.

Monica Beltrametti, Xerox’s R&D chief in Europe, asks whether recession can provide a stimulus to trans-Atlantic cooperation in research.

We will look back on 2008-2009 as a halcyon time for early stage technology, says Ron Petersen, Managing Director at the Boots Centre for Innovation.

Governments often find scientific advice unpalatable. But they shouldn’t shoot the messenger, writes Senior Editor Nuala Moran.

Recent improvements in intellectual property protection make China a great place to innovate, says patent attorney Adrian Tombling.

As the EU ponders an Innovation Act, the UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson gave budding entrepreneurs his view of what government can bring to innovation.