EU Releases Competitiveness Report, Several Members Form Science Europe

The European Union (EU) released its first competitiveness report on all 27 EU member nations and six associated countries — Innovation Union Competitiveness Report 2011. Providing a deeper perspective on European R&D intensity, the report is intended to monitor the progress towards EU and national R&D headline targets and provide economic evidence and analysis to underpin the development of EU and national innovation policies. Twelve key findings are highlighted within the report including:

• The EU is slowly advancing towards its 3% R&D target;
• Despite the economic crisis hitting business R&D investments hard, many European countries are maintaining or increasing their levels of public R&D funding;
• Europe is losing ground in the exploitation of research results;
• European small- and medium-sized business are innovative but do not grow sufficiently; and,
• Europe has a strong potential in technological inventions for societal challenges and new global growth areas (e.g., green technologies).

The report also provides recommendations related to each of the 12 findings that may address the deficiencies highlighted (e.g., the move towards a more cost-efficient intellectual property and protection management system to stimulate technology transfer.) and build upon existing strengths (e.g., even under sever austerity measures, member nations should safeguard spending in R&D, innovation and education.). The report also discusses the ongoing development of a new, single integrated indicator to allow for better monitoring of progress in innovation. The EU is working with member state's national statistical offices and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The metric will focus on the share in employment of the fast-growing innovative enterprises. Read the report...

Several of the European national research organizations also announced the founding of "Science Europe" — a collaborative effort to promote the collective interests of its member organizations and streamline the coordination of policies and activities. Located in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, Science Europe will work to partner with the European Commission and other organizations with similar interests to foster the European research ecosystem. In addition to policy coordination efforts, there will be six scientific committees covering all scientific disciplines, including the humanities and the social sciences.