| Country | Entity | Established | Scale | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE | von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) | 1922 | n.d. | Aerospace engineering |
| BE | Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Ruimte-Aeronomie (BIRA), Institut royal d’Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique (IASB) | 1964 | n.d. | Atmosphere & space |
| BE | Sciensano | 1904; 2018 (current form) | €76m; 741 staff (2019) | Public health, animal health & food safety |
| BE | BELSPO (Belgian Federal Science Policy Office) | 1959 | 10 museums & scientific establishments | Museums, the Royal Observatory, & meteorology |
| BE | SCK CEN | 1952 (non-nuclear activities transferred to VITO in 1991) | 2 research centers; €182m; 934 staff (2019) | Nuclear |
| BE (Wallonie) | Centre wallon de Recherches agronomiques (CRA-W) | 1872; 2001 (in modern form as regional, rather than national, body) | 3 sites; 440 staff | Agriculture |
| BE (Wallonie) | Wal-Tech | 19 research centers; 900 researchers & advisers | Research aimed at modernizing industry covering topics such as cement, textiles, chemicals, etc. | |
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Strategische onderzoekscentra (SOC’s) | 4 centers (imec, VIB, VITO, Flanders Make) | Application-oriented R&D concerning electronics, biotechnology, energy, manufacturing | |
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Orpheusinstituut | 1996 | Artistic research in music | |
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ) | 1927; 1999 (current form) | Marine research | |
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) | 850 staff | ||
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Dierkunde Antwerpen (KMDA) | |||
| BE | Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese Wetenschappen (KAOW), Académie royale des sciences d’outre-mer (ARSOM) | 1928 (as Institut royal colonial belge) | ||
| BE (Vlaanderen) | Agentschap Innoveren & Ondernemen (VLAIO) [innovation & enterprise agency]* | 2016 | https://www.ewi-vlaanderen.be/nieuws/agentschap-ondernemen-en-iwt-bundelen-de-krachten | |
| LU | Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) | 1987; 2015 (current form) | €65m; 617 staff (2019) | Application-oriented R&D relevant to IT, materials & environment |
| LU | Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) | 1988; 2015 (current form) | €45m; 383 staff (2019) | Biomedical research |
| LU | Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research (LISER) | 1978; 2014 (current form) | €18.5m; 180 staff | Social science |
| LU | Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (MPI)† | 2012 | n.d. | Law |
| LU | Luxinnovation* | 1984 | ||
| NL | Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO) | 1932 | €553m; 3000 staff (2019) | Application-oriented R&D in areas such as defense, energy, & transport |
| NL | Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) | 1808 | 10 national research institutes & 3 institutes that provide research infrastructure (here) | Research in the humanities, social sciences & life sciences |
| NL | Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek-I (NWO-I) | 1950 | 9 national research institutes; €225m; 1900 staff (2018) | Research in the physical sciences, oceanography & crime |
| NL | Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) | 2014 | € 293m (2017); 4000 staff (2018) | ‘[H]elp enterprising Dutch people and policy staff move forward in the field of sustainability, doing business across borders, agricultural entrepreneurship and innovation.’ (here *via Google Translate*, noting also the official English version of the page has different wording)‡ |
Notes
*’Innovation’ agencies (self-identified, noting, in the titles of the agencies the words ‘…innovation’ & ‘Innoveren‘). As discussed many times on this website, ‘innovation’ is a political term of art that speaks, in some way, to an actor’s relationship to novelty. In principle, therefore, ‘innovation’ agencies somehow articulate the state’s relationship to novelty. As such, the intellectual, legislative & institutional history of these innovation agencies is possibly informative but is not one I have time to delve into.
In practice, and rhetoric aside, I guess such agencies are mainly concerned with the logistics of certain kinds of business support (state aid that gets round the state aid rules, so to speak). Officials, for example, might simply use taxpayer’s money to subsidize commercial R&D (usually without obtaining equity for the state), or seek out private investors and encourage them to invest their own money in that R&D (in this case, obviously with equity for the private investors attached).
There might also be activities to encourage information flow between various actors (on the often untested & perhaps faulty assumption it is not flowing enough, or that more flow would help – although IP concerns might well restrict the information that flows quite considerably). Then there is all the support that could be given at the smaller end of the company spectrum to found and run a business, such as supporting management & business planning, accounting tips, tax advice, legal services, etc.
[U]nder the title of research and innovation policy, we should think about the creation of a logistic support structure, Luxinnovation. Luxinnovation was set up by the [LU] Ministry of Economy, professional institutes and trade associations. Its functions include the provision of information, technology transfer and technical and administrative assistance to help small & medium-sized enterprises draw up a detailed R&D file for the purpose of realistic risk assessment and evaluation of the chances of the industrial, financial and commercial success of a project. Luxinnovation was established on June 1, 1984 and began operations on October 1, 1984. Its operations consist mainly of making contact between companies wishing to cooperate on specific projects, trying to find firms interested in producing an invention proposed by another firm or an individual or helping small or medium-sized firms to prepare their innovation projects.
Romano, 1990, Comparison of scientific and technological policies of Community Member States Luxembourg: COPOL 88, CREST, DG RTD, Commission of the European Communities, p. 7
†Although part of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (DE), the institution is ‘entirely’ financed by the LU government; it is situated near the European Court of Justice.
‡RVO seems to have some elements of the ‘innovation agency’ but seems also a much more complicated bureaucratic assemblage. It was created by merger of two agencies, Dienst Regelingen (DR) & Agentschap NL, in 2014. In turn, these agencies were also derived from government functions previously shunted together in the interests of ‘streamlining’, noting that: (1) DR was created in 2004 from agencies in the Ministry of Agriculture that distributed farm subsidies, registered cattle with identification numbers and so on; & (2) Agentschap NL was created in 2010 from the merger of the patent office, & agencies within the Ministry of Economic Affairs responsible for international business cooperation and such topics as promoting a sustainable economy.
§In BE, obviously reflecting the nature of the polity, we see a complex structure of institutions operated by the federal & regional governments. At various stages, institutions, or parts of institutions, have been transferred from the federal to a regional government, my impression largely on a geographical, rather than functional, basis (according to whether the bricks and mortar were located in Wallonie or Vlaanderen – but with the notable exception of a handful of entities in Brussels).
- Transfer on a geographical basis, e.g., of CRA-W (agricultural research), in its entirety, to Wallonie in 2001.
- Transfer, but not on a geographical basis, e.g., Centexbel (textiles), CRIC (cement), CRM Group (Metals), CRR (roads), CSTC (buildings), IBS (welding), Sirris (industrial technology) & a timber research center known as Wood (!), all located in Bxl (a separate administrative region), but under the control of Wallonie (as part of the Wal-Tech network).
- Partial transfer, i.e., of the non-nuclear aspects of the national nuclear laboratory (SCK CEN) to Vlaanderen (VITO), occurring in 1991.
Probably there are other combinations, and we must also consider institutions created de novo by the regional governments themselves (i.e., not transferred). I have not dug into the details, but suffice to say, overall, BE seems to represent a very interesting example of the complex regionalization of R&D from what was previously a national structure (the logic of which is entirely political). What remains, though, of the national structure? Well, it has not disappeared. There is the nuclear lab (SKC SEN), the public health & veterinary institute (Sciensano), and a collection of mostly museums managed under BELSPO (& possibly other intuitions I have not heard about).
The crucial public law basis for much of this distribution of institutions *appears* to be La loi spéciale du 8 août 1980 & Article 3 of La loi spéciale du 16 juillet 1993. The latter article indicates that ‘[t]he C
Science Think Tank 