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Unveiling Nordic Innovations

Horizon Europe – Sounds Great, but resembles More a European Maze…

The Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation for the period 2021 to 2027 with a budget of around €100 billion.

It was established to secure the following objectives: 

  • To tackle climate change 
  • To help to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 
  • To boost the EU’s competitiveness and growth 
  • To facilitate collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges 
  • To support the creation and better diffusion of excellent knowledge and technologies 
  • To create jobs, fully engages the EU’s talent pool, boosts economic growth, promotes industrial competitiveness and optimises investment impact within a strengthened European Research Area. 

Its organisation is complex and extremely opaque – the board, some 21 members is far too large, and other administrative bodies are split up into many different bodies covering a massive range of sectors. 

Your correspondent has heard from a recent blended funding conference in Stockholm (an ENFA event) that applications for grant funding are so complex and demanding that even large companies must regularly employ consultants for this work. Furthermore applications by SMEs face challenges to receive any funding.

A recently independent expert report called Align, act, accelerate – Research, technology and innovation to boost European competitiveness” came up with some surprising recommendations on maximising the impact of EU Research and Innovation programmes in the future. 

It is based on the preliminary findings on Horizon Europe and findings stemming from an  evaluation of results of the Horizon 2020 programme so far, and on other sources. 

The writers of this thorough report are Sylvia Schwaag Serger, a professor and CEO of IVA, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and Antti Vasara, CEO of VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The report advocates that Europe should pursue a transformative agenda that should be implemented and embedded in future EU support to research and innovation. 

Their report proposes five main recommendations:

  1. Increasing the next Framework Programme to a huge €220 billion!
  2. Establish an independent European Industry and Technology Council
  3. Exploit the innovation potential of increased defence spending and use dual use
  4. Develop systems for innovation procurement
  5. Strengthen the EU’s single market and introduce a “fifth freedom” – the free movement of research, innovation, knowledge and education

The report is lengthy at 100 pages and was written after Draghi’s report that managed to reach almost 400 pages. This second report is based on many of Draghi’s recommendations.

Given such lengthy papers, one should be justified in asking if decision makers in the EU and in the national parliaments are really reading such long papers and making considered opinions. Another question one may ask is why large grants are being awarded to large International European companies! 

One of Europe’s greatest challenges is to secure economic growth from innovations by promoting the growth of SMEs and cross border mergers of these companies. Large international companies, the incumbents, with few exceptions, are not engines of growth.

Perhaps we need to innovate by simplifying these organisations and focusing on getting more done with less verbosity.

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