Focus on the firm
ntrepreneurs and enterprises are the drivers of innovation in any economy, not least in Europe. Improving our innovation performance – and therefore increasing our productivity – requires the development of a better business environment for companies. Too often the needs of business are not given sufficient consideration in drawing up regulations and policy. As a result, firms lack the flexibility to pursue new markets quickly, or new product development is stifled by regulatory hurdles, allowing competitors to step in. All policy-makers need to give more consideration to the impact of their policies on innovation. That is the central message of the Commission’s recent Communication on Innovation policy (see last month’s special edition and Broadening the approach to innovation). This Communication is one part of a set of recent policy measures – introduced for us by the Enterprise Director-General, Jean-Paul Mingasson – designed to improve the operating environment for business in Europe (see By invitation: Jean-Paul Mingasson, Think small first - act together now, Cambiare le mentalità).
In just a year’s time, the European Union expects to welcome ten new Member States, bringing a huge range of new challenges and opportunities. From now on, innovation policy has to be considered for the enlarged Union as a whole, with our innovation profile significantly different from before. A new study (see Closing the innovation gap) looking at the challenges for the new Member States finds that many of the problems are similar, if more acute, to those facing the current EU-15.
The challenges facing innovators are often far removed from the technological issues, and that holds for both EU and candidate countries. For example, sometimes new technology fails to attract customers for the simplest of reasons. That may be the case with solar power, where an ongoing Innovation project (see Turn on the sun) has found that redesigning solar panels to improve their appearance has a considerable impact on consumer acceptance.
April 2003 
