INNOVATION AND GROWTH SPECIAL SECTION

Spring 2013

by Jens Rostrup-Nielsen

The underlying problem with innovation in Europe is not a lack of investment; it’s the way Europeans approach the subject. We talk about “grand challenges”, yet the way we fund collaborative research results in nice reports and networking but fails to stimulate actual innovation. Pre-competitive research becomes non-competitive research. Research projects should instead be given to competing groups working in parallel and feeling the heat. This can be done through schemes such as the Joint Technology Initiatives, where the agenda is set by stakeholders not politicians.

Political pressure is also wrongly pushing for technology and innovation to be taken out of Europe’s universities. Why would anyone do that? It is the job of universities to train young people at the frontiers of knowledge. That knowledge is then transferred to industry when these young people are employed. Universities should remain hot-beds of new ideas, new concepts and new methods.

Europe’s policymakers should also promote frontier research, which often leads to breakthroughs decades after the initial work. While these breakthroughs can be unpredictable, they sometimes produce useful innovations, effectively short-circuiting more traditional, linear research models. This is the idea behind the European Research Council’s new Proof of Concept scheme, which provides seed money to ERC grant holders.

Science certainly can help society find answers to many of today’s pressing problems. Innovation is also essential to the creation of jobs. But in the current climate, Europeans prefer to be employed as civil servants; we lack an innovation culture. Creating framework conditions for businesses and entrepreneurs may well be a necessary step, but it is not sufficient for the task ahead. What we need are specific instruments that will allow individual innovators to take the initiative.