This is the volume of a series of books emanating from the annual International High Technology Small Firms Conference, begun in 1993, which alternates between Manchester Business School (MBS) in the United Kingdom and the University of Twenty in the Netherlands. The 14 papers included below are the best papers to be presented at the conference held at MBS in June 2005. The conference and book series was originally planned to give a higher profile to the problems of High-Technology Small Firm (HTSF) development at a time when government interest was flagging in the early 1900s. However, while this original intention endures by continuing a 'watching brief on the level of interest in HTSF development exhibited by national governments, the now substantial body of work generated, reflecting trends in HTSF research and policy debates over more than a decade, represents a unique 'time series' record of the evolving interests of a close-knit community of international researchers.