Call for new, improved funding mechanisms for EU’s healthy ageing project

The Commission has had 524 contributions following its December 2010 call for ideas to shape its proposed European Innovation Partnership in ageing, which has set the objective of expanding the health span of Europe’s citizens by three years, whilst at the same time driving through innovation in health and social care that will promote the development of important new markets for European companies.

In its summary of the responses, the Commission says there is a call for EU-level action in four main areas:

1. Joining up efforts by encouraging cooperation based on a shared vision and common targets, fostering synergies and avoiding overlaps, to achieve results that respond better to citizens’ needs;
2. Bridging the gaps between public and private spheres by addressing the lack of support for innovation with the aim of considerably reducing the time-to-market of research and innovation breakthroughs;
3. Making it easier to scaling-up of results by reducing complexity, overcoming fragmentation and enabling different approaches to converge;
4. Improving the framework conditions by removing bottlenecks and anticipating common regulatory and other needs for all stages of the innovation chain, making it easier to achieve critical mass.

In many senses, the contributions make for familiar and depressing reading, rehearsing shortcomings of Europe’s environment for innovation that have been heard many times before.

So for example, in the case of funding, respondents point out that financial mechanisms are often fragmented and insufficiently coordinated. Innovative ideas cannot fully benefit from this variety of existing instruments as they are always synchronised and are often restricted to national schemes or confined to specific sectors.

Respondents are calling for the streamlining and optimising of existing funding mechanisms and resources. They want the partnership to:

• provide a detailed mapping of all available funding opportunities in the field of active and healthy ageing;
• help by examining the current use of existing financial instruments and in recommending ways in which these could be simplified/amended/supported to allow for a more focused and strategic approach with the aim of having a consistent funding strategy across

a) different governance levels (regional, national, EU);

b) all sectors involved (social, health and research); and

c) different types of innovation (technology and social innovation).

• help in improving information on funding programmes and rules;
• encourage the use of more multi-disciplinary projects, encompassing different funding bodies with different priorities.

Many stakeholders point to a lack of funding for the implementation of novel technologies, saying the partnership in ageing should put more focus on implementing and scaling up products and services. For instance, it should promote market-oriented research, and help in providing more financial support for large-scale testing, first scaling up of production and the development of appropriate business models. The partnership could also promote pre-commercial procurement.

Respondents also called for new financial mechanisms to be developed for innovation, for instance by stimulating more cooperation between companies and the European Investment Bank on private equity and venture capital and collaborative ventures; and/or modifying funding or loan criteria for SMEs working in the field.