Battle of the knowledge superpowers →

In the United States, Europe and in rising powers such as China, there is a growth-hungry drive to invest in hi-tech research and innovation.

Not to invest would now be “unthinkable”

Europe is facing an “innovation emergency”.

“In China, you see children going into school at 6.30am and being there until 8 or 9pm, concentrating on science, technology and maths. And you have to ask yourself, would European children do that?”

There has been sharpening interest in this borderland between education and the economy.  

 The French response has been to increase spending, launching a £30bn grand project to set up a series of “innovation clusters” - in which universities, major companies and research institutions are harnessed together to create new knowledge-based industries. 

Robert Aumann, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, attending the OECD event, also emphasised this link between the classroom and the showroom. “How do you bring about innovation? Education, education, education,” he said.

How do you feel about business and education as one?  Or, maybe, should it should be scientific/technological research and business?