Commission set to unveil new generation of innovation initiatives
With the publication of its Research and Innovation Action Plan on 12 October, the Commission is seeking to build on previous initiatives in support of innovation, and to develop a new generation of projects to secure Europe's competitive future. This was a message echoed by a number of the Commission representatives present at the European Innovation Workshop in Edinburgh on 6 and 7 October. CORDIS News spoke to César Santos Gil from the Innovation Policy Unit of DG Enterprise and Industry to find out more about the new programme of initiatives. The innovation component of the Research and Innovation Action Plan has four main pillars - a new Community risk-sharing instrument to leverage venture finance, the well-established Innovation Relay Centre (IRC) network, and two new initiatives, one designed to foster closer coordination of national innovation programmes (PROINNO Europe), and the other designed to support innovation professionals on a sectoral level (Europe INNOVA). Mr Santos Gil has been closely involved in the design of the latter, and told CORDIS News that Europe INNOVA will build on the achievements of the Gate2Growth scheme, which comes to an end soon, and offers support to innovative entrepreneurs in Europe. The flagship initiative of the Gate2Growth scheme is ProTon Europe, a network of technology offices linked to public research organisations and universities designed to improve the commercial uptake of publicly funded research and development (R&D) by improving the professional skills of those working in the field. Other elements include an Academic Network to provide state of the art research into innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as structures for knowledge sharing between investors and incubators. And while the Commission is keen for elements of the Gate2Growth scheme to become self-sustaining once EU funding has ended, it is also keen to apply the lessons learnt during the scheme to its future innovation policy. 'The new initiative will focus on the whole innovation value chain from knowledge creation within universities and research centres all the way to the market,' revealed Mr Santos Gil. Most crucially, the Gate2Growth experience taught the Commission the importance of a sectoral approach to innovation and the value of clusters, and both of these elements feature prominently in the design of Europe INNOVA. The first element of the programme is the Sectoral Innovation Watch, a tool for the analysis of innovation performance in ten industrial sectors (biotechnology, information and communication technologies, energy, automotive, food and drink, space, textiles, chemicals, machinery and equipment). 'This will tell us which sectors are innovative and why, and what it means to be innovative, which is different from sector to sector,' said Mr Santos Gil. 'It will also assess sectoral innovation policies in each Member State so that we can learn what works well.' In addition, there are ten networks of innovation finance actors and 11 networks of European clusters under the programme, all of which will also be organised on a sectoral basis. The former will bring together entrepreneurs, incubators and the financial community to analyse innovation finance needs, develop new tools for innovation finance and draw up policy recommendations. The cluster networks, meanwhile, will provide a platform for exchange of analysis and good practice in cluster management. A further eight sectoral innovation panels composed of industry experts on innovation will complement the analytical work of the Sectoral Innovation Watch by providing sector-specific policy recommendations. Finally, a horizontal communications service will ensure the pan-European dissemination of policy recommendations and good practice that emerge from Europe INNOVA. When asked what the major innovations are in its own programme, Mr Santos Gil replied: 'The sectoral approach is new, the analytical approach is new, and the cluster focus is also new. We have really built on the experience of Gate2Growth and PAXIS.' The initial life span of the initiative is 2.5 years, but as Mr Santos Gil stressed: 'This is here to stay - we fully expect Europe INNOVA to continue under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme [CIP] after the initial funding period is over.'