Economic success is all about research and development (R&D). Or is it?

Figures from the OECD caused a stir this week with the news that China has overtaken Japan to become the second biggest R&D investor in the world, after the US.

And last week the European Parliament signed off a £36bn Framework Programme (FP7) - including a £6bn tranche for technology research - aimed at helping Europe meet its i2010 target to become the world's most competitive knowledge economy.

Such lavish commitments are welcome in that they show a Commission willing to put its money where its mouth is. And, more positive still, the decisions on which projects qualify for investment are to be made by experts rather than politicians or bureaucrats.

But massive central funding is not enough - either to encourage pioneering research or to ensure its wider economic impact. And in some ways, massive investment can be a smokescreen for governments hoping to avoid more complex policy decisions.

How far R&D actually translates into economic growth is, in itself, in question. A recent survey of the world's 1000 largest R&D spenders, by Booz Allen Hamilton, concluded there is no statistical relationship between R&D investment levels and improved profits. As for an individual corporation, most likely for a national economy.

And even if such a relationship could be proved, R&D is only one link in a long chain including policy nightmares as diverse as regulatory and tax environments, skills issues, even apparently oblique topics such as environmental and transport strategies.

Clearly £36bn for research is not a bad thing. But there are more complex questions still to tackle in the name of Europe's knowledge economy, and just throwing money at the problem should fool no one.

So far the electronic school admissions project appears to be a candidate for inclusion in the National Audit Office's recent list of successful government IT programme.

Notwithstanding the usual teething problems that accompany major new systems, it has worked remarkably well and proved unusually useful.

This autumn was the first year of national availability and nearly 90 per cent of the 150 participating local authorities met the target for five to 10 per cent of parents to make their children's secondary school applications online.

But, while laudable, that is not why eadmissions is interesting.

It is interesting because in Hackney, in London, more than 80 per cent of parents used it.

That is four out of five parents across a borough of more than 200,000 people and 17 major secondary schools.

Such figures would be surprising anywhere. But in one of London's most deprived areas? Without the widespread home broadband access widely seen as the key to take-up of online services?

Hackney's experience is not only interesting, it is salutory.

The reason behind the astonishingly high use of eadmissions is that local headteachers were closely involved in the technology project. So at open days prospective parents had the option of using the schools' computers to fill out and submit their forms, with staff on hand to help with any problems.

If a lesson in what makes a successful public sector technology project is needed, Hackney's electronic admissions project must be it. And the point remains valid regardless of problems that may beset the system in the future.