Innovation & technology transfer

European Commission Directorate-General For Enterprise And Industry

Description

3/04, May 2004
Industrial research and development
Industrial policy
Target audience: Specialised/Technical

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-DIRECTORATE-GENERAL-FOR-ENTERPRISE-AND-INDUSTRY
• Nombre de lectures: 22
• Langue: English

Extrait

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I n n o v a t i o n

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> S u m m i t B u s i n e s sE u r o p e a n

Repeating the message

P O L I C Y N E W S

March’s European Business Summit in Brussels saw senior representatives of European industry coming together to send a strong message to the European Council on the need for action to improve growth and competitiveness. Speakers were in no doubt that the overall targets set were necessary, but that action to meet them was, so far, insufficient.

The European Business Summit was filled to capacity over both days.

T he third European Business Summit, held in Brussels in March, provided a high-profile forum for senior industrial- ists from across Europe to meet with Commissioners and political representa- tives. ‘A European strategy for growth and jobs’ was the conference title, and the tone of debate emphasised that a strategy needs to be implemented fully if the desired results are to be achieved. The European Union’s Lisbon target – of making the Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 – was set four years ago, and in recent months a huge variety of organisations have highlighted the slow progress towards the target. The Commission itself gave a very strong message to Member State governments in its report to the European Council that greater efforts need to be made and, in particular, that commitments made at EU

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level had to be followed up with action at national and regional levels. Whilst industry and the Commission are, therefore, in broad agreement on the overall state of progress, the Business Summit provided industrial representa- tives with the opportunity to discuss spe- cific concerns in more detail.

Business environment “A recent survey for the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium shows that, whilst managers plan to expand their R&D and innovation activities in the coming years, most of this expansion will take place out- side Belgium, and indeed mostly outside Europe,” said Luc Vansteenkiste, Presi- dent of the Federation. The survey sug- gests that the attitudes of Belgian man- agers to investment in other European countries are often shared by managers

from those countries too. While those firms that can will increasingly relocate R&D activities outside Europe, smaller companies which do not have that option are likely to reduce their innovation activ- ities and therefore lose competitiveness. “Most significantly, since around half of all new jobs are created in the first five years of companies’ lives, many new innovative companies will not be cre- ated,” Vansteenkiste underlined.

The factors identified by companies in the survey as the greatest barriers to R&D and innovation in Europe are the polit- ical, administrative and legal framework conditions in which they operate. Indeed, these barriers have long been identified as the brakes on innovation in Europe, and the Commission has consist- ently argued for changes in these areas. Vansteenkiste emphasised, however, that administrative changes need to be accompanied by changes in attitudes too. “Lisbon is the right target, but to meet it Europeans need to be convinced that technology will improve their everyday life. Furthermore, making mistakes is part of the innovation process, and we need to be much better at accepting this.”

Adding value

“R&D has been the single most important source of wealth creation, accounting for between one-third and half of growth over the past 50 years,” claimed Didier De Chaffoy, senior vice-president, drug dis- covery Europe in Johnson and Johnson. Illustrating the importance of R&D and innovation for employment, he explained how each senior scientist in his organisa-

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P O L I C Y N E W S

tion meant work for ten scientific staff and 60 production staff, as well as around 400 indirect jobs. But there has been a shift in R&D spend- ing towards the USA in recent years, with pharmaceuticals in particular seeing Europe losing its lead in the introduction of new drugs. “The danger for Europe is that research here becomes low risk, and therefore low value,” De Chaffoy sug- gested. “We need to move from incremen- tal to transformational innovation, with a stronger link between innovation efforts and the creation of economic value.” The partnership between academia and indus- try is very important and needs to be built up, but De Chaffoy argued that there is a need to restate, and respect, their basic roles: while universities have a role in applied research (as well as education and basic research), product development and value creation should be firmly the responsibility of industry, he claimed.

Not just high-tech “We must not forget about the non-high- tech sectors,” said Pierre Jean Everaert, chairman of brewing group Interbrew, “as low-tech does not mean low skills. Companies like ours are creating many highly skilled jobs in many different fields.” He went on to underline a key distinction between R&D and innov- ation in his business: the first is industry- specific and very focused, whereas the second is multi-disciplinary and multi-

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Daniel Janssen talks to Maria João Rodrigues, known as the ‘mother of the Lisbon Strategy’.

departmental. “We need to promote cre- ativity and innovation in all fields,” he underlined, “there is too narrow a focus on high-tech sectors, but 70% of the global workforce either works in high- tech, or with high-tech.” Arguing for a reappraisal of European policies which affect the lower tech- sec- tors, he asked why many services jobs are moving away from Europe. Policies need to be changed to stem this, he suggested. And speaking of the Lisbon target, not- ing that the US and Japan have both improved their competitive positions rela- tive to Europe since 2000, he ventured: “we announce it, our competitors do it”. Underlying his thoughts seems to be the fear that this position is far too wide- spread in European industry, with our inventions too often brought to market by our competitors.

Streamlining A plea for faster decision-making, made by Baron Daniel Janssen, chairman of the European Round Table’s competitive- ness working group, saw its pertinence confirmed as Mary Harney, Ireland’s Enterprise Minister and President of the Competitiveness Council, reported that the previous day’s Council had yet again failed to reach agreement on the Com- munity patent (see ‘Patently unclear’). Janssen called for a single senior Com- missioner to take charge of policies con- cerning competitiveness in the new

Commission. Furthermore, he under- lined the fragmented nature of discus- sion in the Competitiveness Council, where different ministers were responsi- ble for different matters, held back progress. Finally, he noted, had the Com- munity patent been subject to majority voting, rather than unanimity, in the Council, we would have had it years ago. In the event, the European Council meet- ing was overshadowed by the Madrid train bombings, and leaders focused their discussions on anti-terrorism measures. Nonetheless, the Lisbon agenda was dis- cussed, and leaders agreed that “the pace of reform needs to be significantly stepped up if the 2010 targets are to be achieved. The European Council is com- mitted to demonstrating the political will to make this happen.” Furthermore, with ten new Member States joining the EU on 1 May, leaders emphasised that “enlarge- ment will stimulate the European econ- omy, creating new opportunities for all and promoting the convergence of the acceding states. The Lisbon process will benefit from the experience and contri- bution of our new Members.”

C o n t a c t Details of all the sessions at the European Business Summit, including presentations and speaker profiles, may be found at: http://www.ebsummit.org/index.html

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