European growth prospects are dimming as governments slash budgets, austerity plans are imposed and Ireland’s busted banks are rescued for a second time. The European Commission’s new innovation strategy could act as a timely antidote, encouraging the creation of new high-growth companies and jobs. But sweeping away existing obstacles to innovation will be hard work.
To enlist entrepreneurs and innovators in the battle for growth, Commission officials must bring down regulatory barriers, smooth away tensions over intellectual property and devise a better model for public-private partnerships. Marion Dewar, head of innovation policy in the cabinet of Research Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, explained how these challenges will be met at a recent Science|Business Roundtable meeting in Brussels.
The centrepiece of the Innovation Union proposal is a new model for public-private collaboration called European Innovation Partnerships, which will home in on major problems such as climate change, the demographic time bomb and ensuring sustainable energy supplies. These Partnerships will have a direct link to senior politicians through a steering board made up of an EU Commissioner and ministers from national governments, along with members of the European Parliament and high level representatives from industry, to help bring down regulatory barriers – something existing partnerships lack.
“The steering board’s role would be to make sure that any obstacles can be quickly sorted out at the highest level,” Dewar explained. Partnerships will be limited in number and structured around a clear political goal.
Innovation symphony
The Commission aims to fund the new Innovation Partnerships mainly through existing programmes including the Joint Programming Initiative. “We have the instruments; we now have to try to let them work together like an orchestra. Like a symphony, not a cacophony,” Dewar said, adding that if key projects lack funds, additional money will be found.
The Commission will select the objectives of the partnerships and already has launched a pilot project on healthy ageing which aims to extend the healthy life span of Europe’s citizens, but it welcomes suggestions from other parties. Topics must be approved by the legislature, the Member States and the European Parliament. “Clearly within the Commission we’re developing a rigorous set of criteria,” Dewar told the meeting. “We also need a more bottom-up approach; the Commission needs to be open to ideas from outside.”
Crowd-sourcing innovation ideas
Dewar said the commission will seek public participation once the partnership themes have been set. “Ideas can bubble up from the public at large, using technology to gather ideas from a wide area of sources. I also think we can launch competitions once partnerships are running. I don’t at all exclude crowd-sourcing,” she said.
A big challenge looms in coordinating these new innovation initiatives with the existing panoply of European programmes. Dewar said Innovation Partnerships will focus on large-scale and pressing problems like climate change, while existing programmes continue driving innovation on a broader spectrum. Initiatives such as the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), launched as part of the economic recovery programme, and Joint Technology Initiatives (JTI) remain important to developing new science and ideas, she said.
The concept of open innovation, where private and public organisations share their innovations through methods such as licensing, is another priority in the Commission’s new strategy. However, the vexed issue of how to protect intellectual property rights within an open innovation forum remains to be resolved. The problem is causing unrest in another of the Commission’s flagship research partnerships, the €2 billion Innovative Medicines Initiative. “We know that across a whole range of areas; education, research, government and science, [open innovation] is having a big impact,” Dewar said, adding that Geoghegan-Quinn and the Commission have got to decide how to respond to this.
In general, Geoghegan-Quinn is in favour of sharing of publicly-funded research, Dewar said. “It is something the Commissioner believes is positive for the economy and society as a whole. Access to the outputs of publicly-funded research, primarily Framework Programme results, should be open. Research information systems should be more integrated, so it is easier to search not just Framework Programme results, but all publicly-funded results.” But Dewar assured industry participants at the roundtable that open access would not apply to research conducted in collaboration with private companies.
Using procurement to drive innovation
The Innovation Union calls on governments to use their procurement budgets to drive innovation, and in particular to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to come up with new products and services. It also stands squarely behind the creation of a Single European patent by 2014 to drive down the cost of innovation and help SMEs protect their inventions. “Small businesses would be able to patent more of their inventions,” Dewar noted. “Intellectual property should be traded in exchanges, this is important for SMEs. Your patent isn’t worth much unless it can be combined with someone else’s technology. This is particularly important for small businesses.”
Cross-border technology transfer
One of important areas not fully addressed in the Innovation Union plan is cross-border technology transfer. “Innovation is a lot about brokerage, networking and collaborating,” Dewar said. Technology transfer needs to work in two directions; researchers might want to spin out, but companies might want to spin in. SMEs might need access to researchers. “This is easy for big businesses, but harder for small ones. If technology transfer officers could work across borders, it would be easier for small businesses to find the right researcher.”
Finally, the Commission aims to improve standardisation to speed new innovations. “In the past, Europe was able to set the GSM standard, we can’t necessarily do that in all areas anymore, but we have to make sure we get a place at the table,” says Dewar.
The Innovation Union strategy was unveiled on 6 October. It was due to be discussed at a European Council last week, but was knocked off the agenda by the Eurozone crisis, and as yet there is no date for when the discussion will now take place. The Innovation Union is one of seven policy areas covered by the Europe 2020 Strategy. “This is a first shot across the bow. In certain areas we need to drill down further,” Dewar concluded.
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