The Scoreboard shows the gap between European companies and their competitors is particularly large - and increasing rapidly – in terms of the number of licensing deals and the amount earned from patents. This points to well-rehearsed problems with Europe’s patenting system, and also shows the EU as a whole is producing fewer high impact patents that generate significant income from third countries – a sign that Europe is not positioning itself in high growth global sectors where demand is strongest.
The Scoreboard findings provide ammunition for the European Commission ahead of Friday’s (4 February) Council meeting where the Commission will be calling for strong backing from EU leaders for its Innovation Union initiative. The Competitiveness Council has already endorsed the plan but the Commission says getting personal commitments from heads of state at the meeting tomorrow, “is crucial to delivery”.
Policy priority – encourage private sector R&D
According to the Commission, the findings of Scoreboard underline the fact that the policy priority should be to create regulatory and other framework conditions to encourage more private sector investment, and to make it easier for companies to exploit publicly funded R&D. Other measures in the Innovation Union initiative include improving access to finance for innovative companies, creating better innovation support systems; faster and better standard-setting; and using public procurement as a driver of innovation.
The Commission is keen to stress that the Innovation Union is an integrated strategy and not a pick-and-choose menu. That said, it will be particularly promoting European Innovation Partnerships – a new programme of public-private research to deal with pressing issues including climate change and healthy ageing; calling for the completion by 2014 of a unified, European Research Area in which the public and private sectors can operate freely, forge alliances and create critical mass to compete on a global scale; and looking for action to mobilise public procurement as a driver of innovation.
Staying competitive in a merciless world
“The EU and the US face the same global challenges. They both need to stay competitive in a merciless world. But the scoreboard shows starkly that in 10 out of 12 comparable indicators our American friends are ahead of us,” said Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, as she presented the 2010 scoreboard.
The 2010 Scoreboard has been updated and now comprises 25 research and innovation-related indicators, compared to 29 in the past. Among this year’s indicators, about two-fifths remain unchanged, a couple have been merged, five altered and seven new indicators introduced. As a result said Geoghegan-Quinn, “it is a sharper tool than before.”
The aim of the revamped scoreboard is to provide a better picture of the EU’s overall situation, with an improvement in international comparability in particular. The Commission wants it to be a tool to inform policy discussions at a national and EU level.
Amongst the EU’s 27 member states, the top performers are Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Germany, with high scores in private R&D expenditure and other indicators related to corporate innovation activities, including entrepreneurship. All the innovation leaders had higher than average scores in the number of scientific journal articles co-written by authors in the public and private sectors, and are doing well in commercialisation, as shown by the indicator on license and patent revenues from abroad.
But, said Geoghegan-Quinn, “What matters most is not the ranking, but the speed and direction of travel.” All Member States, even the leaders, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany, need to work harder.
Following on from the Council meeting, Geoghegan-Quinn will next week present a Green Paper on EU research and innovation funding. She said this will show the Commission is keeping its side of the Innovation Union bargain, “By getting the best value for money for every euro from the EU budget.”
The Green Paper will contain proposals for bringing all the Commission’s research and innovation funding tools under one umbrella. “We want to offer a seamless set of financing instruments, both grants and loans, supporting the whole chain from blue sky research to SMEs,” Geoghegan-Quinn said.
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