By Joyce C Abaño

DOHA: Research institutions and private companies are undergoing a form of ‘horizontal’ integration, which favours the evolution of research far more than the traditional ‘vertical’ integration.

Former French prime minister Edith Cresson said conducting research is very important and is typically regarded in France as a public initiative, conducted by universities, engineering schools and national research laboratories.

In 2004 the French government launched an industrial policy to drive competition in research and to increase innovation capacity, which resulted in the creation of 71 technology clusters, aiming to break the barriers between research and industry, and to encourage synergies between the public and private sectors, said Cresson in her speech during the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) TECHTalk series, The Creation of Technology Clusters to Drive Research and Innovation, held recently at the Four Seasons Hotel.

“The research institutions and private companies are undergoing a form of ‘horizontal’ integration, which favours the evolution of research far more than the traditional ‘vertical’ integration,” she said.

In parallel, the government encourages creation of innovative start-ups and allocates an annual budget to their development. French research is integrated in the EU Research Framework Programme, and is renegotiated every four years, aiming at creating synergies between two or more European countries.

“It is important to learn from the experiences of others, whether individuals or states, to see if their models could either be imported exactly or modified to accommodate the needs of the recipient,” said Dr Tidu Maini, executive chairman of QSTP.

Cresson, who is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilise the highest level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development, was appointed Prime Minister by former French President François Mitterrand in 1991, and is so far the only woman to have held this office in France.

For the previous 10 years she was a deputy of the French National Assembly and served as Minister of: Agriculture, Foreign Trade, Industry, and European Affairs.

During her visit to QSTP, Edith Cresson also visited some of the research and development facilities established there, including the laboratories of Total and EADS.

TECHTalk, hosted by QSTP, is a regular networking seminar on topics concerning technology development.

The series started in February of 2007 and is held on a regular basis. The lectures focus on the four industry pillars of QSTP: Energy, Environment, Health Sciences and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT