Seminar on Partnerships for Innovation
On Wednesday 27 October at the l’Hôtel de Lalaing of the BIP, the Partnerships for Innovation Conference was held. Co-organised by the Belgian Presidency and Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the new concept of Partnerships for Innovation was presented by the Commission,within the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy...
...and notably, in its communication of 6 October (COM (2010) 546 final), as one of the 10 priorities for "transforming ideas into jobs and green growth into social progress".
It is a question of combining the efforts of the EU and its member states (together with cooperation with the other countries) to meet challenges such as climate change, energy and food security, health and the aging of the population. The public sector needs to be able to intervene in order to stimulate the private sector and remove the obstacles created by lack of financing, the fragmentation of systems for research and trade, the under-use of public markets for innovation and the slow progress in the area of standardisation.
Moreover, the Partnerships for Innovation were the subject of a debate between the ministers of the 27 member states at the formal Council lunch on 12 October in its configuration for “research” and “competitiveness and growth”. This concept is also included in the conclusions of the Council that will be featured on the Coreper agenda for 17 November, and will later be adopted at the Council of Ministers on 25 and 26 November.
This seminar provided an opportunity for the participating experts from the European Commission and from the public and private sectors in Belgium and Finland to answer a range of questions chiefly focused on the financing of governance of these partnerships.
The communication of the European Commission “a union for innovation” was presented by Peter Dröll, head of the innovation policy unit within the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the Commission and the concept by Gérard de Graaf, head of the unit for strategic objective prosperity of the Secretary-General of the Commission. The participants then presented concrete examples of partnerships for innovation that have allowed cooperation to be developed or sustained in the industrial world and the scientific and/or academic world (Aalto University, ICT strategic platforms, FMTC, SIM, Flander’s Care, SalWe, etc.).
The majority of the participants were pleased with the proposal of the Commission and support both the principle partnerships and the pilot project “healthy and active aging” that should be launched at the beginning of 2011 and will make it possible to define the outlines of this new concept in the functioning of the future partnerships. However, they emphasised the importance of adopting an ambitious approach, particularly for the identification of topics for future partnerships for innovation. Moreover, the participants insisted on the necessity of simple and streamlined structures for collaboration with the private sector, especially with SMEs. Finally, they called for the optimisation of existing financial instruments without additional budget for the partnerships.
