Commission calls for action on innovation - communication
The European Commission has adopted a communication designed to help innovation get the extra attention it needs in Europe, defining broad policy lines for the next four years. 'Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy' was adopted by the European Commission on September 20 and unveiled at a press conference by the European Commissioner for Enterprise and information society, Erkki Liikanen the following day as a means to providing the elements necessary to foster and measure innovation in the European Union. 'There are reassuring signs that with an appropriate policy mix, Europe's economic performance can be upgraded. But more needs to be done if Europe is to become fully competitive,' he said at the press conference announcing the communication. The main thrust of the communication is to encourage Member States to remove obstacles to taking full advantage of the knowledge society. 'The trend to globalisation and the new economy means that enterprises either learn how to innovate or they must expect to founder in the face of the competition. It is up to enterprises and entrepreneurs to pick up this challenge, but the public authorities have a responsibility to encourage our innovators and would-be innovators by providing the right background conditions,' said Liikanen. The work of the Commission in helping to provide this environment, according to Mr Liikanen, will be concentrated in a variety of areas: providing a framework for dialogue, co-ordination and benchmarking; helping improve the legal and regulatory framework; facilitating exchange of good practices; helping in networking (for example, in access to venture or seed capital); promoting innovation through community policies and programmes; and publishing the innovation scoreboard. A draft version of the innovation scoreboard based on currently available statistical data has been included into the communication and the next version will be published in June 2001. The communication states the following in relation to the results so far: 'Overall, the picture confirms the existence of disparities in innovation performance in Europe. Certain countries, in particular some of the smaller ones, score quite high and sometimes even better than the US. The country with the highest score is Sweden, with above average figures for 12 of the 16 indicators, followed by Finland (eight), Denmark and Germany (both seven). 'The most innovative of the lager economies is Germany, which is particularly strong in knowledge creation. Italy and Spain are less innovative in this group, with France and the UK exhibiting a mixed picture of a few strengths and a few weaknesses.' Mr Liikanen explained also the difference between innovation benchmarking and the innovation scoreboard. "A scoreboard is quantitative, a statistical exercise, that takes as its means a number of measures and performances. Benchmarking identifies good practices measured through peer review". The communication makes a number of recommendations of what the Member States should do to help create an innovative environment. These include inter alia: - improving their policies for encouraging innovative enterprises, in particular by building on the 'best practices' that have proved successful in other Member States - avoiding innovators being hampered by red tape. The Commission also recommends that special attention be given to private investment in research and innovation and that the rules governing use of results from publicly funded research become market-driven - providing a fertile environment for the creation and growth of innovative companies, through the creation of favourable legal, fiscal and financial conditions for start ups, adequate regional support and fostering education and training in entrepreneurship and innovation - encouraging innovation to permeate the economic and social fabric of their countries, through the improvement of operation of key innovative factors, such as research and development and training institutions - aiming at a well-informed European society, encouraging debates on innovation involving all stakeholders The agenda set on innovation at the Lisbon summit, and taken up with this communication, will be maintained at a Stockholm summit during the winter under the Swedish presidency of the European Union, said Mr Liikanen.
Kraje
France