Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

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| CALL FOR EVIDENCE  FOR AN INITIATIVE (without an impact assessment) | |
| Title of the initiative | New European Innovation Agenda |
| Lead DG – responsible unit | RTD.A5 |
| Likely Type of initiative | Commission Communication |
| Indicative Timing | Q3/2022 |
| Additional Information | https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/strategy/support-policy-making/shaping-eu-research-and-innovation-policy/building-european-innovation-ecosystem |
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| A. Political context, problem definition and subsidiarity check |
| Political context |
| ·Innovation, notably deep-tech innovation, is critical for navigating the twin green and digital transitions of EU society and to improve health and well-being. It is also key to securing the EU’s open strategic autonomy.   ·Despite its numerous policy initiatives and instruments supporting innovation, the EU will benefit from an overarching innovation agenda that articulates all aspects in a way that allows efficient implementation and maximum impact on strategic objectives.  ·There is a need for a comprehensive overview and assessment of the context, the existing tools and the remaining gaps in EU innovation policies in 5 key areas: access to finance, framework conditions (including legislation), innovation ecosystems, innovation divide and talent. |
| Problem the initiative aims to tackle |
| A new European Innovation Agenda will address key bottlenecks such as:  ·Access to finance: scale-up gap  The EU has as many start-ups as the US, but only a few of them are able to scale up rapidly. This is especially the case for start-ups carrying out breakthrough innovation that creates new markets.  Late-stage investment rounds in start-ups are also fewer and smaller in Europe, compared to other global regions. Causes include insufficiently deep and liquid capital markets providing risk finance, unattractive conditions for initial public offerings, unequally spread geographic activity by financial market participants, limited investment by pension and (life) insurance funds in capital markets, limited valuation of intellectual property rights, and regulatory burdens. Framework conditions must become conducive for scaling up in Europe.  ·Framework conditions, including legislation: scope for more pro-innovation regulation  Innovation often calls into question traditional approaches to regulation. The pace of change, particularly in the case of disruptive innovation, may at times be at odds with the dynamics of regulatory processes. Some experimentation clauses paving the way for pro-innovation regulatory practices, such as regulatory sandboxes, living labs and test beds, exist at EU level – notably in the financial (Digital Finance package) and digital fields (the proposal for an Artificial Intelligence regulation for example).  These are also present in some Member States, particularly in the transport, energy and finance sectors. However, implementation and evaluation of the impact of sandboxes, living labs and test beds is limited.    ·Fragmentation of the EU innovation ecosystem: need to strengthen and better connect innovation ecosystems mobilising different funding instruments  Collaboration between innovation actors across Europe is necessary to accelerate and master the innovative solutions needed for the post-COVID recovery, environmental sustainability, digitalisation and future resilience.  Excellent innovation ecosystems can be found in many locations across Europe, but too few can be seen as innovation leaders. Moreover, the strength and depth of interconnections, information flows and knowledge transfer inside and across innovation ecosystems, value chains and actors vary widely.  Synergies between mechanisms and funding instruments to support R&I (such as cohesion policy, Horizon Europe, Recovery and Resilience Facility, Innovation Fund) are also not yet fully exploited. Public procurement, for instance, is a relevant funding source but is not sufficiently connected to the innovation ecosystems.  ·Innovation performance: differences among EU regions  In the past decade, there has been some progress in bridging the innovation divide, notably through some Member States catching up and improving their performance on a number of R&I performance measures, such as patents.  Despite this progress, the innovation performance gap among EU regions remains high, with few Member States and regions recording sufficient progress. This gap in innovation is driven by stark differences in R&D investment levels, framework conditions for research and science, and the quality of scientific and/or innovation outputs.  ·Talent: developing and attracting entrepreneurial talent, encouraging diversity  Despite existing successful initiatives at EU level and within EU countries, there remains a need to build entrepreneurship, deep-tech and innovation capacity into vocational education and training programmes, as well as in higher education and research organisations/academia.  Furthermore, there is an inclusiveness gap in technology and innovation, resulting in valuable human resources remaining untapped. The question of the sector’s attractiveness to non-EU talent, coupled with enabling framework conditions, is also becoming a more strategic issue. |
| Basis for EU action (legal basis and subsidiarity check) |
| Legal basis  The initiative falls under a policy area where the EU shares powers with Member States (‘shared competence’), under the following articles of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union:  ·research – Article 179.  ·economic, social and territorial cohesion – under Article 174.  ·industry – under Article 173.  Practical need for EU action   The proposed agenda will help better integrate initiatives and investment at EU and national levels with strengthened innovation policy making.  It will support the twin transition by better taking into account the new wave of deep-tech innovation.  Action at EU level is crucial for supporting the development of coherent national innovation agendas, supporting access to finance, particularly for small businesses, creating a framework more supportive of innovation, connecting innovation ecosystems, and developing and attracting talent. |
| B. What does the initiative aim to achieve and how |
| What will this initiative aim to achieve?  The new European Innovation Agenda aims to reinforce European capacity to accelerate and master innovative solutions (including deep-tech development and applications). These are needed for the post-COVID recovery, to aid the green and digital transitions in EU society and to secure the EU’s open strategic autonomy.  This will be achieved by bringing together policies, investments and instruments in a joined-up approach to drive systemic change and deliver impact across all EU territories.  What types of action are considered?  ·An initiative on access to finance, to enable measures in the EU regulatory space that facilitate private funding and make the large-scale deployment of public funds in the European innovation landscape more effective. And to close the scale-up gap, by increasing investment by EU-based providers of private and patient capital who have not been sufficiently active in this market segment, and by exploring the potential that intellectual property has to enable access to finance.  ·An initiative to support the establishment of regulatory sandboxes, living labs and test beds, to explore interlinkages between emerging technologies and regulatory practices and address perceived innovation challenges and regulatory hurdles.  ·An initiative on innovation ecosystems to strengthen and interconnect local R&I ecosystems, especially those that currently perform less well on innovation. This initiative could mobilise relevant policies, funding instruments and stakeholder efforts for the green and digital transitions under comprehensive regional innovation partnerships, thereby contributing to bridging the innovation divide and helping connect local R&I ecosystems to EU-level initiatives, as well as to horizontal and vertical European value chains. It also facilitates access to state-of-the art technology infrastructures for deep-tech companies across Europe.  ·An initiative for better innovation policy making, strengthening the existing information base underpinning innovation (definitions, data and methodology), including by updating the innovation scoreboard, providing targeted policy support to Member States (e.g. Technical Support Instrument, the Horizon Policy Support Facility and technical assistance under regional policy) and improving the coordination of innovation policy initiatives (e.g. EIC Forum).  ·An initiative to develop and retain talent in Europe, while attracting new talent from outside the EU. It also aims to facilitate an entrepreneurial mind-set and skills, promote inclusion and gender balance, support female entrepreneurship and encourage cooperation between research organisations and industry. |
| Likely impacts |
| This initiative will build on strong European foundations in research and innovation, and look to drive forward policies and investment at European, national and regional level.  In particular, it will look to address the persistent gap in scale up financing that stymies the growth of European small businesses and start-ups that develop breakthrough innovation.  It will seek to reduce the existing gap between research & innovation and deployment of solutions needed to tackle challenges for European society (e.g. the Horizon Europe Missions).  It will promote new approaches to regulation that can keep pace with, and enable innovation in, new and rapidly evolving fields.  It will seek to better connect across and bridge the innovation divide between regions and between Member States to ensure we realise the potential of, and benefit more equally from the development and adoption of, new technologies.  It will also look to harness the potential of the full talent pool, including underrepresented groups – with a particular focus on women – while making Europe a magnet for global entrepreneurial talent. |
| Future monitoring |
| ·N/A |
| C. Better regulation |
| Impact assessment |
| The draft Commission Communication on a new European Innovation Agenda is a policy document and, as such, does not require an impact assessment. |
| Consultation strategy |
| ·N/A. The Agenda will be based on information from a stocktaking of lessons learnt about the effectiveness of the instruments and actions, and an analysis of current innovation-related actions, assessing persistent problems and new opportunities.    ·A process of consultation and engagement with stakeholders took place over the last 2 years, also in the context of preparing the work programmes for the European Innovation Council and European Innovation Ecosystems:  ·The results of a stakeholder consultation titled: "A Robust Innovation Ecosystem for the Future of Europe" was published in September 2020 (8 workshops, a questionnaire and a high-level conference).  ·Analysis of reports from various stakeholder group workshops (Unicorns group workshop, July 2021, “Tackling the Scale-Up Gap”; seminar in October 2021; EIC Forum Workshop, October 2021; Innovation Ecosystem Leaders’ Group workshop, November 2021; workshop with Women VC Fund Managers, November 2021).  ·In August and September 2021, the Commission conducted a survey for innovation stakeholders: Europe's Innovation Ecosystem Survey Report.    ·In November 2021, the EIC Forum was launched and it delivered policy orientations for the development of the Union’s ecosystem. |

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