Memo to Juncker: How to fix the innovation deficit in the new Commission

Dear Mr President-Elect,

In politics, part of the skill lies in turning problems into opportunities. The perception that you have downgraded research and innovation in the new Commission is one such problem – but there are some solutions, which would further your goals of making policy better and the economy stronger.

First, the problem. Your announcement of 10 September of a new management hierarchy within the 28-member College of Commissioners has been broadly applauded: giving six Vice Presidents power to coordinate the activity of other, junior Commissioners will let you focus on the big issues of helping Europe grow in a stable world. But those who follow research and innovation policy noted that none of these Vice Presidents has innovation in their titles; that the research and innovation Commissioner has a reduced mandate; that science is barely visible in the letters of mandate; and that the EU’s 3,000-staff Joint Research Centre is, bizarrely, to be bolted onto the education portfolio.

Your spokespeople have countered that research and innovation remain important - we are told not to judge the importance of an issue by the management structure. No corporate CEO would agree; in management, form follows function. As a result, in the European Parliament we expect some difficult questions on the topic during your Commission’s confirmation hearings from September 29 to October 7. And that makes it a political problem.

Bull market

The background for this: Since the Lisbon Agenda of 2000, the role of research and innovation in EU policy has been on the rise. In just the past five years, its budget has soared by 30 per cent; the current president appointed a Chief Scientific Advisor (also, by the way, a guest member of our think tank, the Science|Business Innovation Board); and the political rhetoric shifted dramatically. A bit sarcastically, perhaps, we maintain an “EU innovation index”, simply counting the times the word “innovation” appears in Commission speeches or documents. As the accompanying chart indicates, innovation has been popular in Brussels.

You can and should argue over how effective this has been. We are still waiting for a European Google or Apple to arise, or for technology trade surpluses to appear magically across the economy. But you can’t expect two generations of lagging European investment in research and innovation to be reversed in a few years. However, the trends are encouraging. Germany’s investment in renewable energy technologies is world-class. The bubbling start-up cultures appearing now in Berlin, London, Stockholm, Helsinki and Amsterdam are surprising – and spreading to less-obvious clusters in Barcelona, Leuven, Lyons and Milan. And European science is strengthening - in brain research, economics, graphene, biopharma, and physics. Remember the Higgs Boson?

Political signals are important, and we don’t think this progress should be jeopardised by how your appointments are perceived. But there are some solutions.  

1.  Create a network of chief science and innovation advisors at the top of the new Commission

Every Vice President should have, on his or her staff, a qualified scientist or engineer whose job is to advise on the evidence behind each major policy portfolio moving through the Commission. The Commission departments, the directorates-general, would continue in their roles of originating policy and preparing dossiers. But, just as the Vice Presidents will have political, communications or other specialist advisors on their staffs, so they should also have a qualified scientist or engineer to provide an extra set of technical eyes – without the institutional bias to which those labouring in a DG can become prey.

There should be a respected economist on the staff of the Euro Vice President, a computer scientist with the Digital Vice President, and an engineer with the Energy Vice President. These advisors would tell their respective Vice Presidents how strongly-founded a policy proposal is on the available scientific evidence or technical expertise, without filtering for political correctness, administrative convenience or legal simplicity - these are issues for the other staff advisors to handle. They would also assess the impact of every policy on Europe’s capacity for research and innovation – something that must continue growing for the EU to be competitive globally.

2. Appoint a chief scientific and innovation advisor to your own staff, to head a network of the other advisors

These technical advisors will be more cost-effective if they can share resources and knowledge, and police one another, to ensure they stick to the evidence and don’t play politics. For that, they need a leader in your own office. Of course, President Barroso’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Anne Glover, has been targeted for her views by some NGOs. But the campaign will fade, as her job was coterminous with that of Barroso and she appears to be headed home to the University of Aberdeen. Instead, if the overall advisory system is well-designed, it can work to everybody’s satisfaction – as evidenced by the long and generally successful track record of the office in the White House.

3. Assign the JRC to the First Vice President

The strangest detail in your entire organigram was moving the JRC box from under the research Commissioner to put it under the education Commissioner. The JRC is an admittedly odd beast: it runs nuclear and environment labs, but also gathers scientific evidence for the other DGs. You want Frans Timmermans, your First Vice President, to push for “better regulation” throughout the Commission. Would it not make sense to assign the JRC to him, so he can oversee the evidence base of any new regulation?

Of course, there are many other possible ways of handling this problem. But we urge you to consider two essential points in making your decision:

• Good policy requires good evidence to support it. However you structure the Commission, the machinery should deliver the best, politically un-spun evidence available.
• Europe needs a strong science and technology base to compete globally. It currently produces about 30 per cent of all the world’s ideas, as measured by patents or scientific publications. Don’t let that drop.