Europe as a Pro-Innovation Environment - Highlights seminar

In June 2015, President Juncker appointed Robert Madelin his senior innovation adviser with the mission to undergo a broad strategic and political review on how best to position Europe as a global pro-innovation actor.

On 31 May 2016, the European Political Strategy Centre in cooperation with the Netherlands Presidency organised a High-Level Seminar on 'Europe as a pro-Innovation environment' which gathered a select group of senior Stakeholders from multiple horizons.

Before discussing key ideas to foster Innovation, several speakers made a few statements:

Ann Mettler opened the Seminar and welcomed participants before Antoine Kasel from the Cabinet of the President Juncker reiterated the importance of Innovation for Europe and how significant this dimension was for the Commission.

The current Netherlands Presidency of the Council represented by Stephan Raes highlighted some of its conclusions in the scope of Innovation, notably the concepts of Innovation Principle and Innovation Deals. Room was then given to the upcoming Slovak Presidency of the Council who also emphasised Innovation as a core component of their agenda.

Markku Markkula, President of the European Committee of the Regions, reiterated the significance of place-based innovation and the Smart Specialisation Strategy in particular that also embraces Open Innovation concepts.

Robert Madelin then made a presentation surfacing some of the main ideas that might feature in his strategic and political review on Innovation mandated by the President of the European Commission. An initial overview of key figures illustrating innovation's impact in different areas was highlighted: growth, jobs, efficiency... The presented elements then ranged from embracing systems thinking as a way to better understand the complexity of Innovation, to significantly upskilling people as one of Europe's most important assets. Place-based innovation was emphasized and the smart specialisation strategy was pointed to as an initiative to sustain. Another part of the narrative revolved around the numerous facets of Innovation and their associated benefits – in line with triple bottom-line discourses and sustainable development goals. Money was mentioned as a core component of the system but not necessarily the one deserving pressing action.

After some interventions from the audience and a short interactive polling on Innovation, participants were split into groups for tables' discussions. Together, they discussed, prioritised and identified some possible areas for action in order to position EU as a pro-innovation environment. Finally, after a second round of interactive polling enquiring the individual opinion of the most and least important ideas, a plenary session moderated by Robert Madelin provided further details on the ideas at stake.

The Strategic review, is now available both as an EPSC Strategic Note and e-book version with full notes and references, insight articles and bibliography.