Creating an Innovative Europe
Our proposal is to create in Europe a market that stimulates and
encourages innovation and in so doing provides firms with the
incentive to raise their R&D level and to apply successfully the full
range of new technologies.
1. Strategy and the need for action
This report presents a strategy to create an Innovative Europe along with
the concrete steps needed to implement that strategy. The course of
action we shall propose is simple but its application is complex and
requires a huge act of will and commitment from political, business and
social leaders. It is a route which resonates strongly with the origins of the
European Union as a Common Market and with one of its greatest
achievements, the drive towards the Single Market.
Achieving the goal of an Innovative Europe requires a new paradigm of
mobility, flexibility and adaptability to allow R&D and innovation to create
the value that can then support our quality of life. The paradigm shift
cannot be confined to the narrow domain of R&D and innovation policy,
important though that is. Simultaneous and synchronous efforts are
needed at all levels in three areas, which we use to structure this report:
- creation of a market for innovative products and services;
- providing sufficient resources for R&D and innovation; and
- improving the structural mobility and adaptability of Europe.
Cutting across these areas is a fourth which we treat horizontally, being
the necessity for more positive European attitudes and culture towards
entrepreneurship and risk taking.
Why is such a change needed? Europe must break out of structures and
expectations established in the post-WW2 era which leave it today living a ...