Europeans do very good work in R&D. There's also been some recent reporting on the stifling of R&D at major US firms, typically blamed on a business-mindset takeover of an originally engineering-mindset firm. Though I'm not sure if it's always fair to blame the business-types, I definitely agree that the climate at these major American firms is nowhere as innovation/R&D-focused as it may have been a few decades ago.
I wonder if job mobility and the modern corporate turnover in the US contributes to this as well. You mentioned that companies need to allow for long-term R&D from a planning perspective, but the constant churn of the individual contributors greatly slows down innovation as well. It takes time to get up to speed on some projects and make valuable contributions. In my personal observations, Europeans don't hop jobs as much. In younger age cohorts in the US, "high-performers" are generally expected to change roles every ~18 months and companies every ~3 years until they're 10+ years into their career.
To me, one of the craziest things is how little Europeans engineers are paid-- we hire a (useless) entry-level American R&D engineer at a salary higher than the average greater-London R&D manager (who have all been phenomenal partners to me in my projects).
And what's the point of a PMN when that's but one of 12+ international chemical inventory lists you have to register new chemicals on because many big players want global approvals upfront. Even if you have the money it's a hell of a time figuring out who to talk to or what forms to fill - and you'll need probably need to setup an only representative (maybe a really good distributor) at best or actual feet on the ground / an office in some countries.
Europeans do very good work in R&D. There's also been some recent reporting on the stifling of R&D at major US firms, typically blamed on a business-mindset takeover of an originally engineering-mindset firm. Though I'm not sure if it's always fair to blame the business-types, I definitely agree that the climate at these major American firms is nowhere as innovation/R&D-focused as it may have been a few decades ago.
I wonder if job mobility and the modern corporate turnover in the US contributes to this as well. You mentioned that companies need to allow for long-term R&D from a planning perspective, but the constant churn of the individual contributors greatly slows down innovation as well. It takes time to get up to speed on some projects and make valuable contributions. In my personal observations, Europeans don't hop jobs as much. In younger age cohorts in the US, "high-performers" are generally expected to change roles every ~18 months and companies every ~3 years until they're 10+ years into their career.
To me, one of the craziest things is how little Europeans engineers are paid-- we hire a (useless) entry-level American R&D engineer at a salary higher than the average greater-London R&D manager (who have all been phenomenal partners to me in my projects).
And what's the point of a PMN when that's but one of 12+ international chemical inventory lists you have to register new chemicals on because many big players want global approvals upfront. Even if you have the money it's a hell of a time figuring out who to talk to or what forms to fill - and you'll need probably need to setup an only representative (maybe a really good distributor) at best or actual feet on the ground / an office in some countries.