Assessing Public Support for Co-operative R&D: The Case of the RACE Programme

Summary: With the shift from "Europessimism" to a more pro-active attitude towards the completion of the Common Market at the beginning of the 1980s, attention was focused on the main drawback in the organization of telecommunications, i.e. public monopolies which competitively supported their national flagships. The Research on Advanced Communications in Europe (RACE) was an attempt by the European Community to do away with this system. The programme did, to some extent, eliminate duplication but not X- inefficiency. Its only real achievement seems to have been the development of contact between European firms. If this was the true goal of RACE, then full co-ordination, in the sense Ulph gives to it, was not necessary. Simple co-ordination would have been sufficient. The co-operative approach adopted with RACE enabled the European industry to stay afloat at a time of technological upheaval. It did not, however, enable this industry to take the lead.