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February 2003
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Taking stock
ince the European Commission’s 1995 Green Paper on Innovation, the outlook for innovation in Europe has been transformed. In particular, awareness of the value of technological innovation – essentially research bringing new products to market – is wider than ever. The importance of process and organisational innovation, notably to non-high-tech businesses and service industries, is also becoming recognised, although to a lesser extent.
Following three full years of work on the European Trend Chart on Innovation, since its launch in 1999, Europe now has an effective tool for monitoring and measuring the development of innovation policy in Europe. It is clear that, in parallel with the raised awareness of the issues, there are many successes in implementing new policies and measures. But if Europe is performing better, so too are our main competitors. For European competitiveness to improve, we need to narrow the gap, rather than simply stopping it growing wider.
With a new Communication on innovation policy due to be adopted shortly, the Commission will launch a debate on the next steps in European innovation policy, and the Trend Chart and Scoreboard provide a sound basis for this.
With the platform for technological innovation – built on the EU’s Research Framework Programmes – relatively well developed, emphasis needs to shift towards innovation through diffusion: the full economic effects of new technology will only come from widespread adoption. Likewise, policies aimed at strengthening organisational innovation and entrepreneurial innovation will gain further weight, as understanding of the need to empower individual employees grows.
January 2003
