Innovation and Technology Fund

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Fund (ITS/176/01C). 

Part of this work conducted by our research group was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (Projects P-14419, P-14689, and P-12938), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, and the Federal Ministry for Economy and Labour. 

We thank Trine Moller for excellent technical assistance and the Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology, for financial funding. 

Acknowledgments The research work reported here was partially conducted within the Soflnet Austria competence network (www. soft-net.at) and was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics (bm wa), the province of Styria, the Steirische Wirtschaftsfordeiungsgesellschafl mbH (SFG) and the city of Vienna within the scope of the Centre for Innovation and Technology (ZIT). 

The authors would like to thank Veronika Friedl and Anna Aytan for their contribution to designing the COEXIST survey. COEXIST is funded by the Verkehrssicherheitsfonds/BMVIT (Federal Ministiy for Transport, Innovation and Technology), Call sicher.elektio.mobir under project number 199.755. Com-oVer is funded by the BMVIT (Federal Ministiy for Transport, Innovation and Technology), 3rd call ways2go (April 2010) under project number 828980. 

The work described in this paper was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit) within the Austrian national security research programme KIRAS (WWW. kiras. at). 

The research work of this paper was performed at the Polymer Conqietence Center Leoben GmbH (PCCL, Austria) within the framework of the Kpius-program of the Austrian Ministry of Traffic, Innovation and Technology with contributions by the University of Leoben. The PCCL is funded by the Austrian Government and the State Governments of Styria and Upper Austria. 

Part of this work was co-funded by grants of the County "Land Brandenburg" for innovations in products and technologies. 

Acknowledgments Extraction and HPLC-DAD methods were kindly validated and provided by Paula Brown (NHP Research Group, British Columbia Institute of Technology, Burnaby, Canada). This project was funded by the Ontario Ginseng Innovation and Research Centre (OGIRC). 

P C. acknowledges the FWO (Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders) for financial support. O.C. is indebted to the IWT (Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology-Flanders). 

The Italian technologies in the gas sector are very advanced and of high interest for gas transit Countries with this spirit and in the frame of the law 212 for the Internationalisation of Enterprises, and in order to foster the links between Italy and former Soviet Union the Italian Ministry for Productive Activities co-funded the Project G.E.ORG.I.A. SYS - Gas and Electricity Organisation by Innovative Advanced System that with a duration of 18 months will provide the Georgian Partners with training, technological innovation and advanced equipment. 

This workshop focused on factors such as work processes, systems, and technologies that could enable and accelerate the pace of innovation and increase the yield of major innovations from work in the basic chemical sciences. More specifically, speakers identified teamwork, commitment, standardized portfolio management, clear goals, well-defined milestones, and effective technology transfer as some of the characteristics of innovative institutions and practices. Successful approaches to innovation have taken place in different environments and between different environments—despite infrastmcture and cultural differences, both interdisciplinary collaborations and collaborations between industry and academia have proven beneficial for all parties. Funding must also be available to promote innovation at stages of research often ignored. 

Another way to leverage the scarce research and development funds is to hire a catalyst-consulting group. Several catalyst-consulting companies exist to work on a confidential basis on projects sponsored by clients with an interest in business development, market strategy analysis, technological benchmarking, and new product and process innovation. 

Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by the JST program Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology (S.Y.) and by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (No. 20108007, ir-Space ) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. 

---