ration among Japanese firms may become a less common and important element of Japanese technology policy.

European governments have also sought to promote industrial research, development, and technology commercialization through financial incentives for collaborative R&D. During the 1970s, European governments devoted significant attention to joint industry-government projects involving small and medium-sized firms. They also worked to build links between universities and industries in R&D, most often in early-stage research.¹¹⁰ Beginning in the early 1980s, government science and technology policies increasingly focused on emerging technologies and large-scale, pan-European collaborative R&D projects. This has been particularly true in areas such as information technology and biotechnology. As in the United States, a major objective of recent European technology initiatives has been forging technical alliances in pre-competitive research. The planned economic union of the European Community (EC) in 1992 has generated interest in standard setting and economic integration as methods of promoting technological advance. The need to blend economic, technological, and political goals in the organization and focus of many EC projects may have contributed to their organizational complexity and multiple objectives.

The most notable efforts in collaborative R&D in Europe have been managed under the Framework R&D Programs of the European Community.¹¹¹ The Framework Programs will allocate approximately $8.4 billion from 1990 through 1994 for programs in information processing, communications, materials, measurements and testing, biotechnology, and energy, among others.¹¹² The ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology) programs are aimed at pre-competitive research and economic integration¹¹³ in flexible manufacturing, information processing, microelectronics, office automation, and software.¹¹⁴ ESPRIT received funding of $1.8 billion during its initial phase (1984–1989) and will spend more than $2 billion in 1990–1995. Government funds are matched by industry participants. The aim of RACE (Research and Development in Advanced Communications Technology for Europe) is to standardize telecommunications technologies into a digitized broadband network.¹¹⁵ The BRITE (Basic Research in Industrial Technology) program is developing technologies in advanced manufacturing. A collaborative program in biotechnology is attempting to coordinate R&D programs and standard setting of various countries.¹¹⁶

Europe has a number of collaborative R&D programs in operation outside the Framework Programs structure. The EUREKA project, begun in