Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda
One of the digital agenda’s priorities is to increase ICT-related research and development investment and ensure the best ideas reach the market. Highlighting the fact that EU investment in ICT research is less than half the level in the US, Kroes said the new initiative aims to ensure Europe keeps up with the competition.
“Europe’s underinvestment in ICT related research and development threatens the European manufacturing and service sectors,” the Commission said in a statement, in which Kroes called for “a digital revolution” to tackle this and other problems holding Europe back.
As for boosting investment, the digital agenda urges an increase in both public and private funding. Member states should double total public spending on ICT research and development from €5.5 billion to €11 billion a year by 2020, it says. This figure includes EU programmes, such as the Framework Programme, and member state funding. The hope is that the knock-on effect will be an increase in private spending from €35 billion to €70 billion over the same timeframe.
Finding ways to bring about more private investment is key. The European Commission says it aims to do this through pre-commercial procurement and public-private partnerships, using structural funds for research and innovation, and by maintaining a 20 per cent yearly increase of the ICT research & development budget for at least the duration of FP7.
The Commission also set out other ways in which it plans to support research and innovation. As Kroes said at a press conference in Brussels, “It’s not only a matter of money...It’s also about mindsets.”
Other action points include:
Reinforce the coordination and pooling of resources with Member States and industry, and put greater focus on demand- and user-driven partnerships to support ICT research and innovation;
Starting in 2011, propose measures for ‘light and fast’ access to EU research funds in ICT, making them more attractive notably to small- and medium-sized enterprises and young researchers in view of a wider implementation within the revision of the EU research and technology development framework;
Ensure sufficient financial support to joint ICT research infrastructures and innovation clusters, develop further eInfrastructures and establish an EU strategy for cloud computing, notably for government and science;
Work with stakeholders to develop a new generation of web-based applications and services, including multilingual content and services, by supporting standards and open platforms through EU-funded programmes.
Another of the flagship initiative’s priorities is to “unleash the potential of ICT to benefit society.” The Commission aims to use ICT to achieve policy objectives such as supporting an ageing society, combating climate change and reducing energy consumption.
For example, to improve the energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of industries such as construction, transport and energy distribution by 2013, the Commission will support partnerships between these industries and the ICT sector. The EU executive will also publish a green paper in 2011 on Solid State Lighting (SSL) to explore the barriers and put forward policy suggestions for this technology, which uses 70 per cent less energy than standard lighting systems. In healthcare, the EU aims to give Europeans secure online access to their medical health data by 2015 so that patients can access their records wherever they are in the EU.
In addition to investing more in R&D and encouraging the development of technologies to benefit society, the other priority areas highlighted in the Digital Agenda are:
A new single market to deliver the benefits of the digital era
Improve ICT standard-setting and interoperability
Enhance trust and security
Increase Europeans' access to fast and ultra fast internet
Empower all Europeans with digital skills and accessible online services
“The ambitious strategy set out today shows clearly where we need to focus our efforts in the years to come,” Kroes said in a statement.
The Commission plans to act on the measures announced today over the next two to three years, leading to follow-up actions up to 2015. The progress made will be charted in a scoreboard to be published every May.
The full communication can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/documents/digital-agenda-communication-en.pdf
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