With its strategic location and firm commitment to investing in research, Luxembourg has ambitious plans to become a significant player in the international research arena. Jens Kreisel, Ludger Wirtz and Marc Schiltz describe this in a commentary published in the current edition of Nature Materials.

The Luxembourgish government is serious about diversifying its economy, and in turn laying the foundations for a sustainable knowledge-based society. A world-class research infrastructure is central to this vision, and the government is investing heavily to achieve this. Since 2000, public spending on research and development has increased from less than 0.1% to 0.6% of GDP. More importantly, the country is committed to spending further and is aiming to reach around 2.5% of GDP for total private and public expenditure by 2020, which would bring it in line with most other advanced economies in the world.

Read more in the current edition of Nature Materials (March 2014 – Vol 13 No 3):

Editorial: Consider Luxembourg

Commentary “Materials science in Luxembourg” on materialscluster.lu:

Nature Materials is accessible inside the buildings of CRPs Lippmann, Tudor and Santé:
http://www.nature.com/nmat/index.html

Jens Kreisel is at the Materials Science Department at the Centre de Recherche Public Gabriel Lippmann in Luxembourg and at the University of Luxembourg
Ludger Wirtz is at the Physics and Materials Science Research Unit at the University of Luxembourg
Marc Schiltz is at the National Research Fund (FNR) of Luxembourg