ABSTRACT
Industrial R&D laboratories are at the heart of the innovation cycle which ultimately delivers profitable ideas to consumers. The importance of industrial innovation to maintaining competitiveness was the main theme of the opening address to the European Industrial Research Management Association’s annual conference on ‘Industrial R&D and the Human Resource’. BIO-CHEM was an international pharmaceuticals company with three UK sites - the production operation, the commercial and administrative headquarters and the research function. The industrial R&D sector displayed the most sophisticated personnel systems of the four sectors investigated, reflecting both the size of the research sites and the resources of these prestigious industrial companies. Personnel specialists in all the industrial R&D cases articulated a strong commitment to equal opportunities. In practice, however, they were making slow progress in overcoming the prevailing male cultural environment. Companies in the R&D sector were nervous about promising life-long careers in rapidly changing economic conditions.
