Valorise this: How to accelerate the flow of R&I into industry, policy and society?

Barring an exceptional turn of events, competitiveness is set to be one of the defining themes of the next five years of EU policy-making and legislation. The various health, energy and conflict-related crises that have buffeted the continent since 2020 – and indeed many other parts of the world – have prompted major attempts to build greater resilience and autonomy in key sectors and supply chains. Meanwhile, the growing complexity of geopolitics underline the harsh reality that Europe faces an uphill struggle to remain globally relevant in the critical and emerging technology domains that will shape our future economies and way of life.

Against this backdrop, it is clear that Europe will need to significantly up its game in an area of historical weakness vis-à-vis its main competitors – namely, the translation of excellent science and intellectual assets into products and solutions that create economic and societal value. And as highlighted in May 2024 by the European Council, achieving this goal will only be possible if Europe’s research and innovation (R&I) ecosystem makes a quantum leap in terms of knowledge valorisation, accelerating and scaling the flow of innovation into industry, the public sector and society at large.

Inevitably, as with any complex system, a multitude of factors influence the success (or otherwise) of knowledge valorisation. The EU Council conclusions also point to a potentially significant barrier, however – that many actors see themselves as individual links in the chain, rather than participants in a continuous process. Changing this mindset, as well as the enabling conditions and incentives, to strengthen Europe’s valorisation ecosystems will in itself be a challenge, but the long-term rewards for succeeding will be considerable.

On September 12, Science|Business will convene members of its international Network and other key stakeholders for a forward-looking set of discussions about how this can be achieved. Among the topics for consideration: Which are the critical gaps or blockages in getting outstanding science out of the lab and onto the radar screens of investors?  Can industry play a more effective, dynamic role through pre-competitive, collaborative R&D partnerships? How might other investors, including corporate venturing firms, improve the stewardship of innovation to market?  Should Horizon Europe (and FP10) invest more in knowledge and technology transfer functions? Where should governments and policy makers intervene to strengthen the ecosystem, and where do they need to get out of the way? And in a parallel universe, how can we rethink knowledge valorisation as a critical support function for policy making itself themselves?