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This paper describes the results of a case-study carried out within the context of a wider evaluation of the benefits and costs of international collaboration in Europe for the development of fast breeder reactors. The Cabri reactor is a large scale research facility jointly owned and operated by France and Germany, with the UK, USA, and Japan involved as junior partners. The organisation of the collaboration is discussed. Particular issues include problems surrounding barter arrange- ments, personnel aspects and the extent to which costs and benefits have been incurred. It is concluded that a substantial saving was achieved compared with performing the work in one country, but at a cost of reduced national control. The collaboration was facilitated by the lack of immediate commercial significance and by the organisational structure.

A perennial problem facing an R & D effort is the allocation of scarce resources amongst competing proposals or projects. One conceptualization of this problem evolves from the notion of concentration of resources. That is, the balance between more and less expensive projects. The Science Research Council (SRC) has pursued a policy of concentration of resources within both selected areas of research and specific research units for a number of years. This paper presents both a technique for monitoring the concentration of resources and an analysis of the effect of the SRC's policy on the distribution of grants for the years 1964 to 1974 inclusive.

Government policies for the promotion of technological innovation are ubiquitous. Whether one is dealing with developing or developed countries, with governments of the left or the right, with industrial magnates or entrepreneurs who run small firms, all acknowledge both the importance of technological innovation for their survival and the crucial role played by government in supporting it. The reason for this is simple enough: any nation, government or firm depends upon a continual flow of new technology to maintain or improve its situation. As a consequence there has been, since the end of the Second World War, a virtual explosion of government incentives, subsidies and programmes aimed at stimulating one or another aspect of the innovation process. The number and range of these policies have become so bewildering that recently several attempts have been made to classify them and bring some order to an increasingly complex situation. One recent example has been provided by Rothwell and Zegveld (refer to Chapter 2).

In recent years, the emphasis in studies of Science and Technology has shifted from a discussion of the production of scientific and technical ideas to concern over the implementation of utilization of these ideas. Among other things, this has led to the realization that the role played by individual innovators forms a key part of the technological innovation process.