of Photonics Technologies: the European Perspective The Leverage Effect

The Leverage Effect of Photonics Technologies: the European Perspective
Priority also to be given to large sectors with limited dependency
One of the most important outcomes of the leverage assessment is that
a large part of the overall leverage of photonics to the EU economy
comes from sectors where photonics play a significant, but limited role
(like retail and healthcare). Their sheer size makes their contribution
to leverage important. For example, individual retailers might experience
limited benefits from new developments in advanced lighting and
photonics enabled logistical systems. But the overall contribution to the
sector is significant because so many companies will experience these
limited benefits, leading to a high absolute benefit. The Leverage calculations
show that well over 60% of the leverage calculated originates
from sectors which the experts indicated as “intermediately depending
on photonics for their competitiveness”. This is the case for both the assessment
of markets and employment.
The overall leverage of photonics to the enabled manufacturing industries
and final markets is significant. Based on an experimental
approach, it can be concluded that roughly 10% of the European
economy is dependent on photonics for their competitiveness, both
looking at markets and working environment (jobs). Important
conclusion is that over 50% of the leverage depends on the contributions
by sectors where the overall dependency is limited, but the
sector size is large.
4.3
Trends in industries 2010 - 2020
The analysis of the data on the two kinds of leverage was made looking
at 2010. However, the data also provide the opportunity to compare
2010 with 2020, as the expert survey included a question about dependency
in 2020. It must, however, be noted that a full analysis of the projected
industry and market size in 2020 was not conducted. Therefore,
the results must be regarded only as indicative.
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