Technology in the 1990s: the promise of advanced materials - Policies, plans, and research and development investment in advanced materials in the major countries

Technological change is accelerating and broadening. New materials are among the most dramatic areas of such change, and are increasingly being incorporated into existing and new industrial activity. Japan and the United States of America are leading the European economies in many areas of creation and use of new materials. Europe’s talent base in new materials is smaller and weaker than those of the U.S.A, and Japan. Strengthening that talent base through improvements in education and training, and in industry and university collaboration in particular, is Europe’s most pressing challenge in this area.