Open Innovation 2.0 Yearbook 2013 - European Commission - Europa

CHAPTER I
Policy development
1.1. European Commission innovation strategies and support for
innovation — why and how
Abstract
This article describes the background and drivers of
the approach the European Commission takes to foster
research, development and innovation in a balanced
way. The article elaborates the innovation approach
from the open innovation perspective and highlights
some of the new thinking to support the Europe 2020
objectives and, moreover, the Innovation Union objectives
for European competitiveness, jobs and growth.
Table 1: The three main pillars of Europe 2020 [1]
The focus is on a holistic view for innovation which
integrates the various European Commission instruments
and the national and regional actions, and
reinforces the whole process on modern innovation.
A strong systematic innovation approach is suggested
to ensure the full impact of the merge and
integration of societal and technological innovations.
European policy background
The European Commission has defined it’s objectives
through the Europe 2020 programme building
on the three main pillars described in Table 1 [1].
When looking more in detail at the various actions,
we see that these actions, besides research and
competitiveness, also tackle the grand challenges
of society, namely demographics, energy and
environment.
One of the flagships of the Europe 2020 strategy is
the ‘Innovation Union’ which covers holistically the
innovation process capturing all phases from very
basic research to take-up of results. It even touches
issues such as market creation by simultaneous
societal and technological development.
Smart Growth Sustainable Growth Inclusive Growth
Innovation
‘Innovation Union’
Education
‘Youth on the move’
Digital society
‘A Digital Agenda for Europe’
Climate, energy and mobility
‘Resource efficient Europe’
Competitiveness
‘An industrial policy for the
globalisation era’
Employment and skills
‘An agenda for new skills and jobs’
Fighting poverty
‘European platform against poverty’
What is important in the flagship of Innovation
Union is that it integrates in its approach European,
national and regional innovation instruments
in a new way, also highlighting the transformation
from linear to more parallel open innovation
processes, even innovation ecosystems. That
approach also leads to new seamless designs of
the funding instruments under the forthcoming
framework, namely Horizon 2020 and its related
Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). At the time of
writing this article, the discussion on the multiannual
financial framework (i.e. the budget) of
the EU is still going on. Thus, I base the thinking
and argumentation on the Commission proposals
as well as the trends we see to change the whole
innovation landscape.
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