Profiting from Europe

The European Commission is increasingly keen to intervene in European industry, along the lines of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in Japan. There are some 300 support schemes in Europe, 30 of them covering EC pre-competitive collaborative R&D, and 20 dealing with training. Between now and the spring of 1994, the EC intends spending #6.3bn on R&D programmes - #4.2bn of it in new money. Although the acronyms for many of the programmes will disappear, no one should doubt the Commission's intention to support European technology. This is only of benefit to companies, however, if they can find out exactly what is available to help them. Information is coming from the London and Brussels offices of both the European Community and the European Parliament, and some public affairs consultants. This book collects, integrates, assesses and presents this in a more appropriate form, at a fraction of the price that would be charged by consultants. IT companies will learn from this book how to get grants, loans, R&D contracts, tax concessions, and help in finding partners.