Smart ways to improve innovation

Industry and the Commission signalled their intent to improve Europe’s record on innovation at a European Voice event.

Policymakers and companies have to become much smarter about measuring outputs if they are to make significant improvements to Europe’s record on innovation. That was a persistent message during European Voice’s Innovation Forum, a conference organised in Brussels on 30 March.

At the start of the day, Marion Dewar, a member of the private office of Maíre Geoghegan-Quinn, European commissioner for research and innovation, signalled the commissioner’s intention to pay increased attention to the marketable results from the EU’s research funding. The innovation chain had to be extended, she said, beyond research all the way to production.

Dewar stressed the importance attached to innovation in the Europe 2020 strategy that had been endorsed by the EU’s national leaders at their summit the previous week. Funding and policy would be geared to encouraging innovation to meet the great challenges facing Europe: climate change, healthcare for an ageing population, energy security and food security.

Martin Curley, director of Intel Labs Europe, after setting out how innovation was transforming the world of information and communication technology, warned that an emphasis on innovation might be a missed opportunity unless the EU measured the effectiveness of its innovation policies.

Member states had reiterated a commitment to devote 3% of gross domestic product to research and development, but such spending would not be enough to put the EU on track for sustainable growth unless there was a return on the investment. Intel, he pointed out, was devoting 15% of turnover to R&D and 15% to capital investment.

Both he and Lode Lauwers, of IMEC, a research centre in Leuven, stressed the importance of collaborative working for innovation. It was a point endorsed also by Bruno Lanvin of Insead’s eLab.

Curley argued for the adoption of an innovation maturity model, which he argued could drive systematic improvement in the predictability, probability and profitability of R&D investments. The EU risked throwing money at problems unless it could calibrate the effectiveness of its investments and, in turn, use those results to guide its policies.

Old and new industries

The conference, which was sponsored by the Association for Competitive Technology and Opel, ranged in its subject-matter across both old and new industries.

Jan Vliegen of Umicore explained how an old company built on mining and metals had transformed itself into a company devoted to waste recovery and green technology such as photovoltaics.

Stephan Verin explained how a technology cluster in northern France, just across the border from Belgium, was working to encourage innovation in the textile industry.

But he admitted that most of his companies did not take out patents on their innovations. The conference heard some familiar complaints about intellectual property protection. Jean-Luc Gal of the European Patent Office said that even if the current efforts to achieve a Europe-wide patent were successful, the changes would not have an impact for several years.

Walter De Brouwer, the founder of Eunet and of Jobscape, argued eloquently for an American culture of entrepreneurship that did not stigmatise business failure. Where policies do not reward risk-taking and instead enshrine complacency, De Brouwer argued, there was little incentive for innovation.

Rudolf Strohmeier, a deputy director-general for research in the European Commission, argued that the Commission should strengthen the links between its research activities and the policy departments. Without such links, departments risked chasing goals on which they could not actually deliver.

Maria João Rodrigues, who advised the Commission on the Lisbon Agenda, the predecessor of Europe 2020, observed that innovation policies flourished best where heads of government were involved in policymaking, able to cut across departmental jealousies. Michel Praet, a member of the cabinet of Herman van Rompuy, the president of the European Council President, stressed the consensus that had been reached at the last week’s summit by the government leaders. The European Council, Praet noted, would be the main body through which policy instruments were co-ordinated to encourage innovation. Innovation policy will be given particular attention at October’s informal European Council meeting.

A fuller report on the Innovation Forum to come.