There's a problem with network research in Europe, which is that there's really not that much happening beyond the people already signed up for IPv6 pilots.
imiho, there is a very serious problem in that a lot of euro and asian 'research' seems to be defined as things such as ipv6 pilots and unix hacking instead of computer and networking *science*. not to say this problem is not also found in north america.
I agree completely. A huge amount of money is thrown into large projects with many partners, many of whom are playing a "me too" game. Often partners are included for political reasons. This tends to be self-fulfilling - many of these partners aren't sufficiently close to the leading edge to do anything other than piloting activities, so many researchers learn to believe that this is actually what research should be like.