A favourable climate for innovation in the EU can speed up the transition to an eco-efficient economy and increase Europe’s global competitiveness. On Thursday, EU industry ministers met in the Competitiveness Council in Brussels and Minister for Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson led the discussion on the shape of future innovation policy.

Today’s challenges are global and demand new, innovative solutions with good prospects of rapid market take-up. While legislation cannot prescribe innovation, it is possible to create conditions that enable people and businesses to turn their ideas into commercial products and ensure their dissemination on the market.

Potential in the services sector

At Thursday’s Competitiveness Council, work was begun on formulating a future European innovation plan.

“Innovation is a basic prerequisite for competiveness, growth and jobs and for meeting major global challenges such as climate change. Innovation can give us the technical solutions that are needed to manage these challenges and make the transition to an eco-efficient economy,” said Ms Olofsson in her opening address.

At the same time, she made it clear that the concept of innovation must be broadened to include non-technological innovations in the services sector.

“The services sector is one of the leading growth sectors and has great potential for innovation. Learning more about how innovation comes about in the services sector also gives us tools to increase the capacity for innovation throughout the economy.

Ms Olofsson emphasised the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises in the innovation system and said that we need to discuss how best to protect their interests and increase their innovative capacity.

Innovative regions

Vice-President of the European Commission Günther Verheugen then presented the Commission Communication “Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing world”. He gave an overview of progress in the area of innovation in recent years, while also pointing out aspects that can be developed to create a competitive Europe.

According to the Commission, the EU already contains some of the world’s most innovative countries and regions. One of their typical features is that they invest heavily in education, research and development. Another characteristic is that they participate more often than others in experience exchange and are better able to learn from the successes of others.

Better coordination

The discussions during the Council meeting covered a range of topics: the importance of better coordination among existing programmes to support innovation in the EU, better framework conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises, including access to financing, simpler application rules and strong protection for intellectual property rights. Several Member States also stressed the importance of innovative services for the design of future innovation policy.