Brussels, 08 Sep 2006
The news:
World-wide competition to attract research and innovation investment is growing. In addition to attractive locations such as the US and Japan, new competitors have emerged, such as China, India and Brazil.
Innovation plays a key role for the EU to remain competitive and sustain its model of society and is a key driver for the strengthening of Europe’s competitiveness.
At their Summit meeting in Spring this year, European Heads of State and government called for a broad based innovation strategy for Europe.
The European Commission will present its response to the call for a broad based strategy with a communication which makes innovation a top political priority for the Growth and Job strategy and introduces new initiatives to take this forward.
The main aim is to make Europe an even more innovation-friendly society. To achieve this, the European Commission will propose an approach that includes the following elements:
- mobilise actors and existing governance structures to allow for a much wider uptake and use of innovation;
- improve the framework conditions, for example by making better use of the potential offered by the single market and by targeted regulatory measures that favour innovation;
- look at areas where the Member States and the Community can lever industry lead innovation, in particular with a view to using innovation as a means to address societal demands.
The event:
Press conference with Vice President Verheugen at the Berlaymont in Brussels, time to be confirmed
- Available on EbS
The sources:
MEMO/05/113 ; MEMO/05/366
IP/05/391 ; IP/05/1252
European Commission website:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/cip/index_en..htm
The contacts:
Mark Gray + 32 2 298 8644 Catherine Bunyan + 32 2 299 6512
Item source: AGENDA/05/9