'Strengthening innovation, deepening the single market and
moving to a low carbon economy are among the areas where reform
needs to be accelerated to strengthen long-term growth in the
European Union after the worst recession in 50 years.
"Economic crises can offer opportunities to carry out important
reforms to reinforce the long-term resilience of the economy," said
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. "The current crisis has
already triggered ambitious reforms to tackle weaknesses in the
financial system which, if achieved and implemented effectively,
should support longer-term growth prospects."
A major challenge for the EU over the longer-term is to raise the
level of innovation. Despite numerous policy initiatives, Europe
still lags behind the United States and Japan in research and
innovation.'
De OECD analyseert wat Nederland en de Unie moeten doen
daarom als volgt:
Defineer wat creativiteit en innovatie echt
zijn
The measurement of innovation and the evaluation of innovation
policies need to be strengthened
In 2000, the Lisbon agenda included a commitment to make Europe
the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the
world. Enhancing investment in knowledge and innovation is now one
of the four priority areas of the renewed Lisbon Strategy. The
Commission set out a broad-based innovation strategy in 2006 and
member states have committed to achieving an integrated European
Research Area by 2020. Increasing attention is now being given to
the concept of 'creativity', although this concept has not yet been
clearly defined or measured.
Despite the wide range of policy initiatives, progress to date
has been slow, with research and innovation still lagging behind
the United States and Japan. The target of raising research and
development (R&D) expenditure to 3% of GDP by 2010 will not be
met in the EU as a whole and appears unlikely to be achieved
anytime soon.
Meer open innovatie
While the target is an aggregate level benchmark that has
encouraged policy action during the past decade, it is less clear
that it should be retained as such, because it depends largely on
private sector actions, and tends to emphasize innovation inputs
rather than outputs and the use of innovations. EU member states
have already set themselves their own specific targets within the
framework of the National Reform programmes.
The understanding of the innovation process is also changing,
with non-technological innovations and open innovations (such as
open-source software) becoming more important and research efforts
more likely to involve co-operation across national borders.
These all change the link between national R&D efforts and
innovation outcomes. The Commission is taking steps to improve the
statistical information available about innovative and creative
activities in order to make greater use of output-based measures,
allowing innovation policies to be developed from a more
appropriate knowledge base. Support for R&D by the EU member
states should be at least maintained during the current
recession.
Duidelijker kennisprioriteiten zijn nodig
Improvement in measurement would also be an important step
towards better evaluation of the effectiveness of the innovation
policies pursued by the Commission. The Commission has been
commendably prompt in introducing policy support for innovation.
The policy initiatives are tied together by the vision of the
future European Research Area (ERA) and a broad-based innovation
strategy.
But there is a need for priority setting amongst the initiatives
and better quantification of the importance of each in accounting
for differences in innovation across countries. The policies
adopted reflect the perceived need for favourable framework
conditions such as well-functioning product and financial markets
and an adequate supply of human resources for science and
technology.
Without these, the effectiveness of specific innovation-related
initiatives and attempts to foster demand for innovations may be
constrained. Better measurement of innovation outcomes would aid
the evaluation of Commission-funded research programmes. The
Commission should also take further steps to improve the
development and use of common evaluation methodologies and
techniques for all innovation programmes.
Betere arbeidsmarktregels voor
kenniswerkers
Developing an integrated labour market for researchers and an
integrated intellectual property system should be priorities.
Improvements in the framework conditions for innovation and
progress towards an integrated research area will underpin the free
movement of knowledge across national borders (the so-called 'fifth
freedom'). Achieving a fully integrated labour market for
researchers, a Community patent and a Unified Patent Litigation
System will be important.
The Commission is already taking actions to improve education
and training policies to raise the long-term supply of human
resources for science and technology. But such resources remain
smaller in the EU than elsewhere and a significant share of
university graduates, doctorate recipients and postdoctoral
students graduating in Europe migrate to work elsewhere.
The international orientation of European researchers should, in
principle, enhance knowledge flows to the EU economy. However,
steps need to be taken to enhance the circulation of EU and non-EU
researchers. The Commission has launched the European Partnership
for Researchers and should ensure that the priority actions are
implemented on schedule by end-2010.
Some of these are a matter for member states, but the Commission
can ensure that publicly-funded research positions and research
grants are open to qualified nationals of all member states and
that researchers have the freedom to take research grants across
national borders when changing jobs. Obstacles to short-term
mobility in national pension and social security schemes should be
removed.
Kennismigranten en patenten: snel beter
doen
A Blue Card scheme is also to be introduced to encourage inflows
of highly-skilled migrants by simplifying application procedures,
provided that they have sufficient experience and a job offer with
a salary above a certain threshold. The scheme is a welcome step
forward, but the immediate benefits of it may not be large,
especially since the Card will not grant rights to permanent
residency and member states retain the right to set quotas that
limit the numbers of cards issued. It will be important to monitor
the impact of the scheme and explore possible extensions to the
rights granted to Card holders to further promote mobility.
The European patent system, and hence the cross-border markets
for technology and knowledge, is currently fragmented. Patent
protection can be obtained in multiple European countries by
receiving a "European patent" from the European Patent Office. But
such patents require validation by national patent offices, which
often requires translation into another language.
Furthermore, the 'European patent' is subject to litigation in
the national courts. The costs of validating and maintaining a
patent in many European countries are thus much higher than in
either the United States or Japan, with the burden being especially
high for small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, to reduce
such costs, a simplified system, with a single 'Community patent'
that would be valid automatically in all member states and a
centralised Patent Litigation Court for both European and Community
patents should be implemented.
Meer geld voor kennis en innovatie
Funding for innovation should be enhanced and
research co-operation should be encouraged. The market for
high-risk capital, such as private equity and venture capital,
plays an important role in the financing of innovation, especially
for young, innovative companies, but is underdeveloped in
Europe.
The Commission and other Community-level bodies have thus taken
steps in the European Economic Recovery Plan to ensure that
financing of such companies is supported during the ongoing
recession. Further ahead, the Commission will need to follow
through on plans to tackle obstacles to cross-border venture
capital provision.
It should enhance the effectiveness of innovation policy design
and delivery by tackling overlaps between the numerous
Community-level programmes that offer funding for innovation, by
looking for unexploited synergies and by reducing the presently
high cost of research grant applications.
Meer valorisatie en kenniscirculatie
Innovation activities increasingly involve co-operation between
different groups. Yet European innovation surveys indicate that
public research organisations are a key information source for only
a relatively small number of companies. This could mean that there
are only a few commercial applications of the basic research
undertaken in Europe, but is more likely to indicate that there are
obstacles preventing firms from either being aware of the work
undertaken in publicly-funded research organisations or from
accessing it.
The Commission produced guidelines for universities and research
institutions to improve their links with European companies in 2007
and is to upgrade the status of the EU Forum for
University-Business Dialogue. In 2008 it adopted a Recommendation
on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer
activities and a Code of practice for universities and other public
research organisations.
The rules for participation in Community-level R&D funding
programmes should be extended to ensure that all applicants have to
submit plans for dissemination of research findings as part of
their research projects. Consideration should also be given to ways
in which the European Union might further strengthen research and
innovation links with other regions.
U leest het volledige stuk op www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/eu.