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The article is about the current research in National Taiwan University and the center for biotechnology.

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on research activities in selected institutes of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The research methodology adopted for this study was the case study approach, specifically multiple cases. This study employed structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as a data collection instrument to collect data from respondents in the five selected research institutes of CSIR. The study shows that ICTs have a positive impact on research activities. ICT tools have been proven to be very helpful to researchers and other non-core staff of CSIR in finding needed information quickly and easily, expedition in the research process, improvement in job performance and have also helped in information access, management and communication. The study also identified lack of training in ICT, insufficient computer hardware and suitable software applications, lack of competent Information Technology (IT) professionals, non-existent budgetary allocations for ICT and lack of required Internet bandwidth as the major hindrances faced by the researchers and senior staff in the CSIR. The study recommended improvement in ICT infrastructure, appointment of competent IT personnel and proper training and guidance for optimum utilisation of ICT-based technologies.

Although theoretical approaches to research and development (R&D) performance measurement are widespread, empirical investigations into the application of these theories are far less diffused. Therefore, we started a research project aimed at studying the R&D performance measurement practices adopted by Italian technology-intensive firms. This paper discusses the earliest empirical results of the project; it deeply investigates the experience of an Italian contract research organisation in designing a system of performance measures for its research activities.

The studied case is interesting for the following reasons: (i) it witnesses the increased interest by technology-intensive companies towards R&D performance measurement; (ii) it enlightens the lack of consolidated practices capable of guiding the design of an appropriate performance measurement system; (iii) it elaborates a practical framework that can help fill this gap. In fact, a systematic approach for linking different contextual variables (i.e. the company's strategy, the type of R&D activity undertaken, the purpose of the measurement and the R&D unit's organisational structure) to the critical design choices (i.e. the choice of the performance indicators and the structure of the system) is suggested.