Summery from the EU Commissions "Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing world"

‘Innovation is the ability to take new ideas and translate them into commercial outcomes by using new processes, products or services in a way that is better and faster than the competition’

Innovation cannot be organised by decree. It comes from people, and only people, scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and their employees, investors, consumers and public authorities — will make Europe more innovative. But they do not act in a vacuum. They act with a mindset and in a framework which either discourages or incites them to enter unknown territories.

Innovation is the precondition for the creation of a knowledge-based, low-carbon economy. Mastering this transformation is crucial to remain competitive in the globalised world and to achieve wider societal goals in a sustainable way under the pressure of demographic changes, the climate challenge, scarce resources and new security threats.

Innovation enables European industries to position themselves at the upper end of the global value chain, making Europe the world market leader in energy and resource efficient products and technologies and equipping us with the means needed for global action. Moreover, only in an environment that supports innovation can R&D efforts result in real gains.

That is why the re-launched Lisbon Partnership for growth and jobs has put innovation and entrepreneurship at the centre and called for decisive and more coherent action by the Community and the Member States. On this basis, an ambitious European innovation policy has been launched and the Small Business Act (SBA) has been agreed2. Thanks to this partnership approach, progress can today be reported. Almost all Member States have improved their innovation performance. The innovation gap between the EU and its key competitors, the US and Japan, has narrowed.

As new competitors are emerging and challenges are getting bigger, the EU must not only sustain the recent positive trend, but further improve it. While the economic crisis risks reducing available resources, from previous recessions, such as in the case of Finland, we know that prioritising investment in research and innovation is possible and can play a key role to enable a sustainable economic recovery.

The aim of this communication is to identify remaining gaps and propose policy orientations on how to fill them.