While the generation of new and improved products is essential in sustaining
the present and future competitiveness of science-led companies, the costs
of R&D activity are under constant pressure, and the timescale of return on
that investment is shortening all the time. In addition, the fragmentation of
multi- business companies into increasingly focused market sectors, at least
in Europe and the US,(Interestingly, many Japanese companies have
maintained their corporate research laboratories even through the depression
of the Japanese economy in the late 1990s), has also reduced the breadth of
technical expertise available within any one company.
These changes mean that the opportunities for exploiting a "distributed"
model of R&D activity: where companies buy-in, collaborate, or sub-
contract parts of their R&D activity, have blossomed.
