BY JOHN STANSELL
LONDON - The Alvey program in advanced microelectronics leaves a legacy of cooperative research that promises to outlast the completion of its last individual project later this year.
Begun in June 1983, Alvey proved to be a model for government- university-industry collaboration, for joint efforts among competing companies, and for cooperative research throughout Europe. It has also received high marks for luring top scientists back to Britain.
Britain failed to match similar efforts in microelectronics, artificial intelligence and software begun earlier in the decade by the United States and the Japanese because of battles between government departments and hostility between university-based and industrial researchers. The logjam, however, was broken by a 1982 report from a committee headed by John Alvey, head of R&D at British Telecom.
The new program was given a five-year budget of $630 million, almost half of which was...
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