VINNOVA, the main funding agency for EUREKA projects companies and research organizations wishing to participate in EUREKA projects, welcomes and supports the efforts to discuss and further develop Community innovation policies. VINNOVA also agrees with the general description of the importance of innovation for long term sustainable growth and [...]

The world is heading into troubled waters. Every feeling person senses it. Yet the Commission’s paper curiously called EUROPE 2020 A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth seems to be living in a world of its own. Its authors live in a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil world. They sense no dangers.
It just wants to get over [...]

The Commissioners for Innovation and Industry have been saying the kindest of things about one another (through gritted teeth)
Was it just me or were Commissioner Maire Geogeghan-Quinn and Antonio Tajani overdoing the mutual appreciation at their joint press conference on Wednesday?
They each seemed at great pains to say how well they get on and how [...]

Sir,
Regarding ‘Small firms slam ‘deceptive’ EU accounting plans‘:
I am British and wanted to come and start a business in Belgium as my daughter is at university there studying law. But when I looked into it all, it is so expensive to set up as heavy capital is required. Lawyers and accountants fees are also very [...]

Last week, the Lisbon  Council hosted one of my favourite events ever, The 2010 Innovation Summit. It was what an event on innovation should be: open to new ideas, collaborative and, well, simply different. Intellectually, the discussions were underpinned by a new e-brief we launched at the occasion, entitled Wikinomics and the Era of Openness: [...]

Début mars, l’Union européenne a présenté sa nouvelle stratégie visant à hisser l’Europe au rang d’économie la plus compétitive du monde. Europe 2020 succède à l’infructueuse stratégie de Lisbonne. Hélas, la Commission européenne s’accroche à une vision très linéaire et classique de l’innovation. Anthony Williams, auteur du livre Wikinomics, estime pourtant qu’il est urgent pour l’Europe de passer à un modèle d’innovation 2.0.

I was invited to have a contribution – sounds like make a donation, but it isn’t the case - and comment some topics in the agenda of this European investment forum. Well, I’m not very sure of attending the event, but took the opportunity to express some thoughts, partially reproduce below. Somehow it seemed [...]

Sir,
Many researchers across Europe are unhappy with the administrative burden of European research funding. The Framework Programme, as the biggest part of this funding, is far from easy to use despite many efforts at simplification.
Many stakeholders, including the European Commission, are working on simplifying the participation rules. That’s certainly promising. However, what is missing so [...]

Des centaines d’idées neuves écloses chaque moisau sein des organisations. Néanmoins, il existe souvent presque autant d’excuses différentes pour enterrer ces idées d’innovation aussitôt celle-ci émises. Cette réalité est source d’auto-censure et, in fine, d’inertie. Voici quarante excuses types que l’on entend dans les entreprises face à la nouveauté. Déjà entendu l’une d’entre elles ?

At her speech to the Lisbon Council’s 2010 Innovation Summit last week, the EU’s highly charismatic and enthusiastic Chief Innovation Officer, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn laid out her vision of transforming Europe into an “I-conomy”, connecting and speeding up innovation all along the whole policy chain from research to retail, building a functional single market for [...]

The ERRIN innovation event, The Hospital of the Future, 2 March 2010, explored the future of the hospital as a recipient of financially and environmentally sustainable investment.
The key outcome for me, as one of the moderators of the event, was the emerging view of the hospital as a major innovator within their local/regional economies.
Hospitals are [...]

This story about Europe as an Innovation Union was published by EurActiv on 2nd March 2010.
The EU’s new growth strategy, due to be rubber-stamped by the new Barroso Commission on Wednesday (3 March), includes a blueprint for transforming Europe into an ‘Innovation Union’ by 2020.
A leaked draft of the ‘Europe 2020′ strategy ties together research, [...]

I had the distinct honour of speaking at and participating in a panel discussion at the European Foundation for Management Development conference at Advancia, in Paris recently. An informed group assembled to hear from entrepreneurs and academics.
I was impressed with the work of Advancia and the support it gets from the Paris Chamber of Commerce. [...]

Article published in EDRi-gram 8.3
On January 28 and 29, the Council of Europe held a consultation meeting on the launch of work on a new international instrument that would create neighbouring rights for broadcasting organisations. The purpose of this initiative is to take up the work of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which, following [...]

With the above words, Peter Mandelson, former EU Trade Commissioner and now UK First Secretary of State,     concludes a perceptive op-ed in today’s International Herald Tribune.
Lord Mandelson identifies a mismatch between our expectations of China and China’s own assessment of its role and responsibilities. Today’s Chinese leadership is defined by two decades of Chinese growth [...]