I527-290 ESRIF Final Report (WEB).indd - European Commission

16
A stringent and comprehensive industrial policy framework for the security sector is thus necessary to increase the security of
Europe’s citizens and the global competitiveness of its security industry.
Such a European industrial policy framework should seek to:
Motivate strong and widespread R&D activities (both public and private)
Ensure the rapid transfer of the best results of innovation to market
Foster general interoperability of solutions
Provide common guidelines for capabilities that are jointly developed by the supply- and demand-side participants
Moreover, Europe’s security and defence sectors share a large number of requirements and missions – a commonality that
will only increase in the future. Industrial exploitation of these synergies and interoperability between security and defence
solutions should be encouraged, as history is full of successful bi-directional transfers of knowledge and solutions.
ESRIF endorses the idea of creating a Lead Market Initiative in security. In a globally diversifying market, Europe can be a key
supplier of technologically cutting edge, qualitative and eff ective security solutions. However, such solutions can only be
successful on the world market if they are interoperable, fl exible, modular, upgradeable, hardened, aff ordable and eff ective.
Moreover, they can only be developed if all stakeholders are involved early on in regulatory policy and R&D processes, where
a future joint science board could be envisaged, for example.
In sum, a co-ordinated legal framework is desirable both at national and European level to achieve a common understanding
of the principles governing the security market. A common harmonized regulatory framework for security technologies and
security research and innovation in Europe would allow industry to better focus its new industrial developments in view of
user needs and market requirements.
2.7 Innovation
To preserve its security, Europe must have strong in-house scientifi c, technological and industrial competences. It is
important to capitalise on this knowledge through pooling and clustering to maximize synergy between diff erent
technologies, stakeholders and services and in establishing a systematic interaction between demand and supply to
ensure that security solutions are eff ectively tailored to meet operational needs.
Innovation is about fi nding new paths in research and development, and bringing the results to markets. But organising knowledge
base is not suffi cient—we need strong interaction between supply and demand sides to produce the right solutions.
To support the take-up of R&D results, security research needs to be grounded in a comprehensive policy approach. This would
embrace the defi nition of initial operational security requirements and end-user needs to operational testing of solutions and
their procurement and deployment. Such a process approach calls for the sustained engagement and commitment of all
stakeholders.
Yet fostering true R&D innovation also requires incentives for high-risk research investment in the knowledge that not all
innovative eff orts in such directions are successful. That same risk factor also explains why such investment is diffi cult to justify
according to strict business criteria. ESRIF therefore advocates that a certain percentage of EU and Member State security
research funds be reserved for high-risk risk investment that otherwise would not see the light of day.
2.8 Security by design
Securing the future will require that security be treated as integral part of any given system, process or operation from
the point of conceptualisation onward. Current add-on security solutions no longer suffi ce, Europe needs a systemic
approach to security.
ESRIF FINAL REPORT - PART 1 • ESRIF’S Vision: Key Messages