MADRID—With 1992 and European commercial integration fast approaching, Spain has taken measures to launch itself into the mainstream of European science, boosting the funding and training of its scientists and taking key steps to attract foreign technology-based industries.
While Spanish scientists are pleased with these measures, they also regard them as inadequate if Spain intends to compete successfully in the new, unified, high-tech Europe.
“Seven years ago, Spain was at the end of the European train with Portugal and Greece—and well behind Ireland—in the amount we spent on science as a fraction of gross domestic product,” says biochemist Emilio Munoz, president of the National Research Council and one of the principal architects of Spain’s new Law for-Science. “Today, we are well in front of Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. We are even getting close to Belgium and Italy, countries of a similar industrial and commercial level to Spain.” And within the ...
