Commission to propose Innovation Act
By: Futures
Tags: Economic Growth, European Commission
Is a European Innovation Act what’s needed to make Europe more innovative and strengthen growth and competitiveness in the EU? Policymakers, analysts and businesses are currently debating that very question as the EU considers what to do post-Lisbon.
Is a European Innovation Act what’s needed to make Europe more innovative and strengthen growth and competitiveness in the EU? Policymakers, analysts and businesses are currently debating that very question as the EU considers what to do post-Lisbon.
Barring some economic miracle, Europe will fail to hit the target set out in the Lisbon Agenda of devoting 3 per cent of GDP to research and development by 2010 – leave alone becoming the “world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy” by the same date. As the deadline looms, the focus in Brussels seems to have turned away from this specific goal and towards the idea of an overarching innovation policy.
Time and again, the EU’s Commissioner for Enterprise, Günter Verheugen, has stressed the importance of innovation. But in October, the European Commission came up with a new idea, saying it wants to look at the feasibility of proposing a “European Innovation Act” to the Member States before spring 2010, at the end of its communication ‘Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing world’.
Everything is on the table: the definition of innovation, what – in current policy – is working, what isn’t, Community funding programmes, the role of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs)…the list goes on. The idea is to put in place general principles that create a coherent policy on innovation, bringing together the various existing rules and policies, and making changes where necessary.
“It’s important that it [the European Innovation Act] is associated with real change,” said Bruno Van Pottelsberghe, senior fellow at Brussels think tank Bruegel and professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles.
A more centralised approach is needed to avoid duplication in research activities in different EU nations, and to make it easier for researchers to work in another EU country, he said.
Public consultation on the Commission’s communication and the plans for a Community innovation policy closed on 16 November. A list of 12 questions suggests the kind of comments being sought, for example, “Should EU innovation policies have a stronger orientation towards addressing major societal challenges? If so, which ones should be prioritised?” and, “How could the Community funding programmes for innovation, including FP7, the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme and Structural Funds, be simplified and streamlined?”
Author: Anna Jenkinson