Innovation is our passion

Britain produces some of the best small hi-tech companies - but where can you find out about them? Not in Her Majesty's Fourth Estate, I fear. The national Press does not cover them at all, and tipsheet magazines focus largely on those on Ofex and Aim. But if they have turnovers of less than £100,000 - which many of the best certainly do in their early formulation stage - 'Free Radicals' is likely to be their first public outing.

This means that unless you are a firm which can employ a PR firm, it is difficult to get intelligent coverage in the Press. And if you can, dark hints about 'advertising with us' are often raised prior to the article being published.

Tracking these companies requires real research, and that is why 'Free Radicals' was born.

Chemicals that flow around the body disrupting the status quo are called free radicals; companies that smash conventional methods and practices cause the same heartache to competitors. They create processes, products and systems that dynamically advance human progress. 'Free Radicals' is the place we hope you will read about these companies.

We will concentrate upon 'substance' technology companies - from anywhere we can find them. Some are in sectors such as IT, telecoms, materials sciences, biotech, plastics or opto-electronics, or they are emerging starts in nanotechnology - the core science of the 21st Century. Technologies under scrutiny could be in the arena of faraway physics and chemistry, which does not have a commercial application. Yet..

We will focus on Internet companies only when they deploy real technology, such as in sophisticated structured data applications. Unfortunately so many people still think Internet companies are 'hi-tech', when in fact there is more sophistication in my local chemist's link with his bank than in most Internet start-ups. This does a great disservice to true 'substance' companies and entrepreneurs with serious vision and serious purpose.

But we won't be pompous. We will also cover 'mittel-tech' or 'cross-tech' companies - those that have considerable potential through the clever combinations of science and thought.

Want an example? A glass scientist and a vet got together to produce a glass feed pellet for cows. Once swallowed the glass dissolved harmlessly at a pre-set rate, and the nutrients entered the beast over a period of time - and not expelled immediately. Of course, this 'simple' exercise cost £1m in development fees to safeguard animal and human health.

Our 'Readers Stories' allows anyone to submit stories, story ideas, snippets, or even whistleblower's tipoffs. The barriers to Press publicity are there no longer. Help us to write about your company, your technology, your university project, first.

Please email us editorial@free-radicals.com where we have assembled one of the best sets of links to innovation-related sites anywhere on the Web.

Jon Mainwaring,
Editor, 'Free Radicals'.