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  he range of innovation-support schemes and measures detailed in the Trend Chart – now over 700 – demonstrates that governments are now very aware of the importance of innovation in relation to R&D policy. Initiatives such as the target to increase research spending in the EU to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2010 show that Europe’s leaders attach importance to technological innovation.
Although great progress has been made in this field, much more remains to be done. But while the Commission believes that the momentum generated in recent years will continue the integration of innovation in research policies, it now needs to look at fostering other forms of innovation.
Widening commitment
The Lisbon target will not be met through technological innovation alone, but will need significant improvement in the diffusion of new technologies, to both lower-tech industries and services to improve their productivity. Organisational innovation, which ensures that new technologies and processes bring the promised benefits to European productivity and society, is also critical. Success in this approach requires the involvement of a much wider range of policy-makers and administrators – from across the spectrum of government departments – at national and regional, as well as European levels.
Therefore, a key objective in the coming years will be to raise the political profile of innovation, generating stronger commitment. This requires the development of better understanding among public officials who have not, until now, been required to consider the effects of their policies on innovation. Beyond that, they need to be encouraged to support innovation through their activities. Another aspect is to identify more concretely the factors that foster innovation, and establish how and why, so that these can be reapplied more widely across Europe.
Joint goals
Co-operation, and co-ordination of efforts will be central to this drive to widen recognition of innovation policy, building on the foundations of the Group of Senior Officials and the Trend Chart.
Ten new countries are expected to join the EU in 2004, and future European innovation policy will need to include them fully. In many ways the challenges faced by the candidate countries are similar to those of current Member States, hence the importance of continuing the development of co-operative links for mutual assistance through the Trend Chart policy- learning process. None of the candidates has a fully-fledged innovation policy yet, so that will be a priority in the coming years, and it is possible that specific actions will be needed to support them in this process.
Charting the future
The Trend Chart has proved its value in the preparation of the new Communication, giving the Commission much more information on the current situation than has been available in the past. For the Trend Chart, and Innovation Scoreboard in particular, the challenge now is to consolidate its coverage, improve the quality and comparability of information across European countries, and open up to other aspects of innovation less focused on high technology.
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