Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SWEdeeptechCon (SWEDISH PRESIDENCY CONFERENCE ON DEEP TECH ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR AN INNOVATIVE, RESILIENT AND COMPETITIVE INTERNAL MARKET)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2023-10-31
The internal market turned 30 in the beginning of 2023. It is one of the greatest successes of the union, but the EU cannot rest on its laurels. There are several challenges to the internal market, including inflation, high energy costs, competition from global rivals, component supply shortages and the disruptions from the war in Ukraine. There is also an urgent need to push forward with the green and digital transitions. The deep tech sector, which is characterised by science-based revolutionary innovation, holds the key to make Europe globally competitive while at the same time bringing the next generation of clean technology to the market and reducing dependence on hostile counties. The European Commission has proposed several important initiatives to boost innovation, deep tech and EU’s competitiveness. Two of the key initiatives are the European Innovation Agenda and the Action Plan on Intellectual Property.
The objective of the conference on deep tech entrepreneurship was to provide a forum for knowledge exchange and co-implementation within the framework of the European Innovation Agenda and the Action Plan on Intellectual Property. The conference brought together private sector (deep tech start-ups, corporates, venture capital), national and regional governments, EU organisations (EIC, EIB, EIT, EIF, JRC, …) and other stakeholders to stimulate the actors to discuss the challenges and join forces to help push for common solutions.
To allow time for in depth discussions around the challenges for deep tech growth, the conference selected to only focus on three of the key challenges that deep tech companies face:
- Improved collaboration between small research-intensive companies and large companies
- Strategic use of intellectual assets
- Financing for growth in Europe
The conference was structured around three main blocks:
- Setting the overall strategic scene of why deep tech is crucial for EU’s competitiveness
- Deep dive into the three challenges in focus, with keynotes and panels
- Workshop with all participants around the three challenges
The expected impact was to
- Create awareness of the importance of deep tech for EU’s competitiveness
- Bring people together from different stakeholders, countries, and EU organisations
- Contribute with new insights around the challenges of scaling and keeping deep tech companies in EU. Insights that could add to future strategic work in member states as well as in EU.
The objective of the conference on deep tech entrepreneurship was to provide a forum for knowledge exchange and co-implementation within the framework of the European Innovation Agenda and the Action Plan on Intellectual Property. The conference brought together private sector (deep tech start-ups, corporates, venture capital), national and regional governments, EU organisations (EIC, EIB, EIT, EIF, JRC, …) and other stakeholders to stimulate the actors to discuss the challenges and join forces to help push for common solutions.
To allow time for in depth discussions around the challenges for deep tech growth, the conference selected to only focus on three of the key challenges that deep tech companies face:
- Improved collaboration between small research-intensive companies and large companies
- Strategic use of intellectual assets
- Financing for growth in Europe
The conference was structured around three main blocks:
- Setting the overall strategic scene of why deep tech is crucial for EU’s competitiveness
- Deep dive into the three challenges in focus, with keynotes and panels
- Workshop with all participants around the three challenges
The expected impact was to
- Create awareness of the importance of deep tech for EU’s competitiveness
- Bring people together from different stakeholders, countries, and EU organisations
- Contribute with new insights around the challenges of scaling and keeping deep tech companies in EU. Insights that could add to future strategic work in member states as well as in EU.
The conference gathered 500 delegates from +40 countries. The conference brought together private sector (deep tech start-ups, corporates, venture capital), national and regional governments, EU organisations (EIC, EIB, EIT, EIF, JRC, …) and other stakeholders to stimulate the actors to discuss the challenges and join forces to help push for common solutions.
The final conference programme was focused around three areas related to the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA):
• Improved collaboration between small research-intensive companies, large companies, and academia (to facilitate access to infrastructure for customer validation)
• Strategic use and management of intellectual assets
• Financing for growth in Europe
All three topics included sessions of keynote presentations, panel debates, interviews and during day 2, three parallel workshops related to these topics were held, simultaneously as a cascade of presentations of highlighted projects took place at the main stage. A programme of side events were offered to all participants during day 1, before the conference programme started:
- Study visits to Ericsson Imagine Lab, KTH Innovation and Microsoft
- EIC Investor day on climate tech
- EIC Forum
- Coalition of the Willing
A conference report "Accelerating European Deep Tech" compiling the output from the keynote presentations, panel debates, interviews and workshops was published online and launched during the Spanish presidency event "Next Generation Innovation Summit" in Madrid.
The final conference programme was focused around three areas related to the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA):
• Improved collaboration between small research-intensive companies, large companies, and academia (to facilitate access to infrastructure for customer validation)
• Strategic use and management of intellectual assets
• Financing for growth in Europe
All three topics included sessions of keynote presentations, panel debates, interviews and during day 2, three parallel workshops related to these topics were held, simultaneously as a cascade of presentations of highlighted projects took place at the main stage. A programme of side events were offered to all participants during day 1, before the conference programme started:
- Study visits to Ericsson Imagine Lab, KTH Innovation and Microsoft
- EIC Investor day on climate tech
- EIC Forum
- Coalition of the Willing
A conference report "Accelerating European Deep Tech" compiling the output from the keynote presentations, panel debates, interviews and workshops was published online and launched during the Spanish presidency event "Next Generation Innovation Summit" in Madrid.
A presidency conference can be an opportunity for key stakeholders to meet and get inspiration around key subject areas, or it can be a showcase of successful projects from the host country. Most of the time the long-term differentiating effect is limited.
The ambition with the Deep tech conference in Stockholm was to create a lasting value for the participants and for the policy work in EU. The result we aimed for was to give the participants plenty of opportunity for new connections, new insights and new knowledge that could contribute to the policy dialogue even after the conference in the many different working groups on EU-level, as well as on national levels.
The key principle of the innovation ecosystem in Sweden is collaboration and co-creation. The ambition with the Swedish presidency conference was to create a forum where stakeholder collaboration and co-creation could flourish. Hence, there was a strong focus on securing a wide participation of different nationalities and different stakeholder groups, such as the commission, entrepreneurs, large corporations, venture capital etc.
Since the conference took place in Sweden the participation from Sweden was most naturally the largest group. Although, more than half of the participants came from other countries in EU. Further the conference attracted participants from all stakeholder groups. Many participants belonged to several stakeholder groups but have in the attached graph only been assigned to one group, hence this graph is more of an approximation of the distribution.
The ambition with the Deep tech conference in Stockholm was to create a lasting value for the participants and for the policy work in EU. The result we aimed for was to give the participants plenty of opportunity for new connections, new insights and new knowledge that could contribute to the policy dialogue even after the conference in the many different working groups on EU-level, as well as on national levels.
The key principle of the innovation ecosystem in Sweden is collaboration and co-creation. The ambition with the Swedish presidency conference was to create a forum where stakeholder collaboration and co-creation could flourish. Hence, there was a strong focus on securing a wide participation of different nationalities and different stakeholder groups, such as the commission, entrepreneurs, large corporations, venture capital etc.
Since the conference took place in Sweden the participation from Sweden was most naturally the largest group. Although, more than half of the participants came from other countries in EU. Further the conference attracted participants from all stakeholder groups. Many participants belonged to several stakeholder groups but have in the attached graph only been assigned to one group, hence this graph is more of an approximation of the distribution.