“The Innovation Union strategy is not giving sufficient weight to industry”
The new Innovation Union strategy – a flagship initiative of the Europe 2020 Strategy – gives insufficient weight to industry, according to Jean-Claude Marcourt, President of the EU’s Competitiveness Council and Minister of Economy, Wallonia, at the opening of the Belgian EU Presidency conference dedicated to addressing societal challenges through entrepreneurship and innovation.
Mr Marcourt reported that while the EU Member State delegations at the recent EU Competitiveness Council welcomed the European Commission’s Innovation Union communication, the majority regretted that not enough attention is being given to industry.
“Innovation is not just about technology. It is about the response to our needs in terms of climate change, the ageing population and also the economic crisis,” he said.
Pointing to the important role European regions can play in relaunching competitiveness through innovation, he added: “In the future, regions will have an important role in stimulating innovation, particularly through ‘intelligent specialisation.”
The Walloon region has been a pioneer in the development of ‘competitiveness clusters’ which bring entrepreneurs, researchers and other stakeholders together in focused industrial concentrations such as aerospace, agro-industry, health, mechanical engineering, and transport & logistics. The “Creative Wallonia” programme to be launched on Friday October 29th will focus new efforts on creative industries in the region.
“Such partnerships are the basis for spreading innovation through the economic fabric,” Mr Marcourt said. “Numerous enterprises are embracing innovation in the context of competitive industrial clusters.”
The EU Presidency Conference ‘Reshaping Europe: Addressing societal challenges through entrepreneurship and innovation’ has brought together some 650 members of the Europe INNOVA community of innovation practitioners together with key innovation stakeholders from the worlds of politics, academia and business to examine how Europe’s economic and society challenges can be tackled by stepping up innovation across the EU.
The gathering is taking place at a time when the European Union is calling upon industrial innovation to help pull Europe out of the current economic crisis and become the new economic foundation of a prosperous EU.
Addressing the conference, Heinz Zourek, Director General of the European Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry, said: “There may be innovation with or without research, but not without the entrepreneurs who bring new ideas to the market. Europe does not so much lack innovative ideas but rather entrepreneurs who take risks and want to grow fast.”
While welcoming EU efforts to push ahead with research, Mr Zourek also confirmed the need for concerted action at the industrial level. “Research and innovation are necessary for developing new technologies and market opportunities. …But building a strong knowledge base is in itself insufficient for success,” he cautioned. “There is no innovation without entrepreneurship,” he said highlighting the fact that SMEs are often the drivers of ground-breaking innovation activity.
“Creating more start-up and spin-off companies in Europe is important, but we also need SMEs with the ambition to become high-growth and global firms.
He stressed the continued importance of promoting industrial clusters to pool resources and ideas at local and regional level and foster industrial change and economic development.
Europe’s emphasis, he said, should now be on developing “world-class clusters” that are internationally recognised “hot spots” for innovation and investment in promising areas.
Industry is, and should be, continuously adapting to market changes, he said, and as industry changes, so must industrial policy …..European industrial policy must use the fresh winds of innovation to create new markets and business opportunities.
“And the policy question is no longer about ‘picking winners’ but rather about providing the right incentives for structural change so that new industries can emerge and that societal challenges can be better addressed,” he said.
Citing the example of Wallonia’s economic development strategy, the Commission Director General pointed out that European industries and small and medium-sized enterprises must also be helped at EU level to become more competitive and able to face global competition. For this, he said, innovation is a key.
As part of Commission efforts to promote industrial innovation in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy, three new initiatives will be presented at the Conference dealing with:
- Transnational public procurement buyer groups targeting innovative products
- A platform to support European Mobile and Mobility Industries
- A new grouping to champion Europe’s Creative Industries
