Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol2-1 > Joint Research Centre

Roland Schenkel, Director General, Joint Research Centre, European Commission

The global challenges we are facing today cannot be solved without a very strong commitment to research and innovation. We have to find solutions to cope with climate change, assure security of energy supply, safe products and food, a healthy environment and, last but not least, find ways out of the economic crisis. Besides a strong European research policy, robust scientific advice and expertise are needed upon which policy-makers can base their decisions to overcome the most pressing problems and to meet citizens’ concerns.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) was recently acknowledged as “an indispensable source of knowledge and expertise in support of the political agenda of the EU” by an evaluation panel of independent experts led by Sir David King.

As a Directorate-General of the European Commission, the Joint Research Centre provides customer-driven, scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of European Union policies and functions as a reference centre of science and technology.

Joint Research Centre has seven scientific institutes, located in five EU member states and employing some 2,750 staff, who work on a wide range of policy areas stretching from environment, sustainable energy and transport, to safety of consumer products.

But the EU not only needs an efficient research policy, it “must become a true innovation union”, as Máire Geogheghan-Quinn, the new Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, clearly stated in her opening statement at the hearing of the European Parliament.

We at the Joint Research Centre directly contribute to the shaping of EU research and innovation policies, by providing data and analysis on public and private research efforts: examples of this activity are the study of national research policies (ERAWATCH) and the analysis of the dynamics of business investment in research (Scoreboard of corporate R&D investment).

Regional variations

We are also pushing this research effort further, and model the impact of regional development policies on innovation and growth. For example, the European Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) published at the end of 2009 shows that the level of innovation in regions varies considerably across almost all EU countries. It provides a comparative assessment of innovation performance and is a tool for the design and implementation of innovation policies at regional level.

Based on the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) approach and methodology, it assesses innovation performances across 201 regions in the EU and Norway. Analysis indicates that Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic are the most heterogeneous countries, where innovation performance varies from low to medium-high.

While, on average, the pattern of innovation as quite stable between the years 2004 and 2006, several regions, in particular in Spain and France, have improved their innovation performance. The report also shows that the most innovative regions are typically in the most innovative countries, although some regions outperform their national level.

Results also suggest a clear message to policy-makers: many of the “low performers” have relative weaknesses in the dimension of “innovation enablers”, which includes human resources.

Joint Research Centre also provide science-based responses to policy challenges that have a socio-economic and a scientific/ technological dimension. Joint Research Centre research lines support the effectiveness of major EU policies by providing data and analysis in their design phase, but also by contributing to their implementation.

Target policies

And we support policies targeting “systemic”, pervasive, technological developments, such as those aimed at reaping the full potential productivity gains – both in the public and private sectors – of innovation related to the digital economy. 

A recent example of this activity is a major study that was carried out on the impact of social computing and web 2.0 applications on fields such as public services and governance, learning, work and e-company productivity.

Furthermore, Joint Research Centre expertise helps to ensure that the implementation of other sectoral policies (such as environmental policies) brings about the expected positive results when it comes to the roll-out of technological innovation.

This is illustrated by work in support of the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), where Joint Research Centre carry out a highly complex process of consensus-building between industry and governments on the best available technologies. Its aim is to improve the environmental performance of industrial installations, thus fostering the take-up of innovative technologies across most industrial sectors.

There are many other sectors in which Joint Research Centre carry out an important role in the innovation process, and I want to mention just a few here: our European Centre for Validation of Alternative Methods is mandated by European legislation to validate the effectiveness of alternatives to animal testing, which is an important issue in particular for the cosmetics industry.

Joint Research Centre also assess new technologies, for example in the area of civil security, where we test electronic passports for conformity and inter-operability. Norms and standards are important requirements for innovations to reach the market and we contribute through development of reference methods, production of reference materials and development of norms such as the Eurocodes for the building sector.

Commercial potential

Finally, Joint Research Centre work produces results with strong commercial or exploitation potential and we are committed to protecting and exploiting our intellectual property in different ways:

Technology Portfolio. This online portfolio provides a description of Joint Research Centre technologies available for licensing in the fields of health, environment, nuclear, energy, safety and security. So far, about 50 technologies are described in eight different technological fields. (for more information, visit: www.ec.europa.eu/dgs/jrc/)

Licensing. Joint Research Centre exploitation agreements may be exclusive/ non-exclusive and are typically royalty-bearing, but the Joint Research Centre can also license its results on a royalty-free basis for non-commercial purposes. A recent example of this is the licensing of a technology using RFID to guide a visually impaired person through a predefined area to the Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted.

Spin-off. The Joint Research Centre proactively supports the creation of spin-offs based on its R&D results. A recent example, created in 2009, is Plasmore, which is developing a fully portable multiplexing (multi-message signal) label-free biosensor for medical applications, security, drug screening and basic research in proteomics and genomics.

 

Roland Schenkel, Director General,
Joint Research Centre (JRC),
European Commission
For more information, visit:
Website: www.jrc.ec.europa.eu