Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol2-1 > EU innovation - It won't be business as before

Innovation Commissioner Maire Geoghegan Quinn

A “root and branch” rethink of EU innovation policy is underway. A new EU innovation and research strategy will be unveiled in the autumn, which, according to the EU Innovation Commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, will be a “step change” and fundamentally different to what has been done before.

Since the Irish Commissioner was confirmed into office by the European Parliament in February, it has been evident that future EU innovation policy is not going to be “business as usual”.

In a short period of time, the Commissioner has cemented her position as a key player in the new Barroso Commission, one who has quickly built strong support for an EU innovation strategy that is now the centrepiece of the EU 2020 economic recovery plan for the next decade.

And Geoghegan-Quinn is now responsible for delivering large parts of that EU innovation strategy. “My job,” she says, “is to create the conditions for a more dynamic Europe, where innovative firms want to do business, and where talented people want to live and work. My job, in short, is to work with the member states, business and other stakeholders to transform Europe into a really vibrant innovation economy, what I call an ‘i-conomy’.”

Constructive thinker

After an unexpectedly confident and well-informed performance at the European Parliament’s hearing prior to her appointment, Ireland’s former European Affairs minister has continued to impress during her short period as Commission innovation “supremo” and is starting to confirm her assertion that she is a constructive thinker and a doer.

Having spent a decade among the number crunchers of the European Court of Auditors in leafy Luxembourg, she arrived in Brussels with first-hand experience of the expectations, expenditure and performance records of the major EU innovation research programmes.

No starry-eyed devotee to research and innovation, Geoghegan-Quinn has spent the first three months banging home the priority of making the EU’s investment in research relevant to the priorities of today’s society. Her stated aim is to deliver research to where society most needs it: climate change, energy and the ageing population.

Policies under the spotlight

The internal organisation of the Commission’s everyday business has undergone a sea change since her arrival. No longer are individual Commission departments and their Commissioners working in “silos”, independently developing policy in disparate areas such as regional policy, industrial policy, research policy, patent policy, IP rights, and so on. She has rightly called for a joining up of the dots and for all these policy areas to be brought under the same EU innovation umbrella.

One of the first EU innovation policies put under the spotlight was the European Innovation Act, scheduled for launch by DG Enterprise in March. There was recognition early on by Geoghegan-Quinn and the new Industry Commissioner, Antonio Tajani, that it was too restrictive to look at EU innovation solely from the perspective of industry and that a more holistic approach was required with across-the-board co-operation between Commission departments.

The Innovation Act has now been sent back to the drawing board.

Next to join the discussion was Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier, who recognised the contribution that could be made to the EU innovation debate by parts of his portfolio, such as intellectual property and the Community patent. With suitable cajoling from the Irish Commissioner, a powerful EU innovation subgroup of EU Commissioners has emerged, including those responsible for regional policy and the digital economy, to look at all the issues in a more comprehensive way.

The creation of what amounts to an EU innovation focus group has, of course, chimed perfectly with Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s relaunch of the EU recovery plan after a decade of disappointment under the Lisbon Strategy. EU innovation is the centrepiece of the new EU 2020 programme launched in March and has been presented as the key to unlocking Europe’s economic future and success.

With this political momentum behind EU innovation policy, the tables are being cleared for a major relaunch of the EU innovation strategy in the autumn and some of the directions it will take are already becoming evident.

Learning the lessons

A group of experts has been appointed by the Commission to review the current Framework Programme, FP7. The 10-strong group, chaired by Rolf Annerberg of the Swedish Council for Environment, Agricultural Science and Spatial Planning, will probe all aspects of FP7, including its impacts on the European Research Area (ERA), the global position of Europe in science, the efficacy of novel measures under the FP7, and the role of research in efforts to tackle major societal challenges.

The group’s findings will feed into the design of the Eighth Framework Programme (FP8), scheduled to begin in 2014. The brief of the expert group is deliberately broad and its conclusions could have a considerable impact not only on the shape of FP8, but also on general strategy towards research and EU innovation.

Clear communications

Geoghegan-Quinn’s aversion to Commission acronyms was evident from the hearings at the European Parliament. Although she acquitted herself well in terms of acronym recognition, she demonstrated a disdain for the Commission obsession with clever code words.

“Whilst those working within the system love these acronyms, they are not helpful to communication with the outside world,” she said.

She is determined that the next Framework Programme will not sound like a Grand Prix racing car – the FP8 programme is likely to undergo a user-friendly rebranding.

“I don’t want to say that scientists are not good communicators, but it’s just not their forte,” she says. “They want to do the science and should leave somebody else to communicate it.”

She maintains that the EU is not communicating well about all the excellent work that FP7 and its predecessors have contributed to EU innovation. “We just don’t hear about it. You only find out about the wonderful things we’re doing in neurodegenerative diseases or mother-infant transmission of HIV when you dig deep and ask individual directors within the Commission.”

The Commissioner also says that she is very anxious to get young people interested in science and maths again. “I want to see role models for young people and I also want them to see that there are lots of people around who have degrees in science, maths or engineering, but can go on to do something totally different now.”

Simplification of EU innovation and research funding

Based on her experience at the European Court of Auditors, Geoghegan-Quinn is keen to have a better balance between making things simple for researchers and the demands for effective auditing.

“At the Court of Auditors we have always pointed out that the more complicated the rules are, the more danger there is that you’re going to have difficulties with the way money is accounted for. If it’s more complex there are more errors, so the simpler the rules are made, then the fewer errors you are likely to have,” the Commissioner says.

“Researchers are telling me that they face more bureaucracy with European funds than they do in their own member states. They are asking why they can’t have the same procedures as those followed by national authorities – who are also very concerned with how money is spent.”

At the end of April, the Commission announced plans to simplify the procedures for taking part in EU innovation funded research projects. The simplification strategy is split into three parts. The first concerns changes that can be made under the current legal and regulatory framework.

For example, better user support – in terms of easily understandable documents, user-friendly IT (information technology) tools and optimised business processes – reduces the time taken to award grants and make payments. 

The second strand of the plan includes a wider use of “average cost methodologies”, which would free projects from accounting separately for each small item of expenditure. The Commission also proposes allowing projects to use the same accounting methods for EU innovation projects as they currently do for national research schemes. 

The final part of the plan explores options that would work on a “payment by results” principle. Agreed objectives would be set in return for funding. Payment of full amounts would be linked to whether those objectives are achieved.

“I want researchers to spend more time in the lab and less time in the office,” comments Geoghegan-Quinn.

“Our proposals aim to minimise administrative burdens in Europe’s research programmes. So what we’ve done with simplification – along with the forthcoming communication on ‘tolerable risk of error’ – is ensure that we get all these scientists back into their labs and out of the offices.”

Savings through simplification

The Commission has noted that every ex-post audit rendered unnecessary by reforming the rules would save an average of C60,000. Indeed the cost of implementing the research framework programmes was about C267m in 2008.

If all proposed measures were fully implemented, a further reduction of time-to-grant in the order of 20% could be expected. As concerns time-to-pay, the measures will contribute to achieving the Commission objective of making 100% of the payments within the deadlines set by the Financial Regulation.

New EU innovation indicator

“Every time you talk to somebody about innovation and you have 10 people in the room, you get 10 definitions of what it can be,” says the Irish Commissioner, who is looking to broaden the concept to everything from social innovation through to design and industrial innovation.

While the Commission has decided to retain the long-standing 3% R&D target, it is being defined differently. The Commissioner has stressed that it should not be just an input target, but a way to measure the output of EU innovation.

The Commission is currently working with each member state to define their individual targets according to their circumstances. “This is very much appreciated by the member states,” says Geoghegan-Quinn.

“You can’t go to Bulgaria and insist that they follow the same targets and timeframes as the Nordic countries. You will see in the innovation plan that we’ll have a diagnostic tool that helps us make a diagnosis and provide a critical path. It won’t be business as before.”

To define the Innovation Indicator, the Commission is bringing a small group of people together who have a track record in this area and are not purely representatives from different member states.

“Some come from academia, some are economists, some are business innovators,” explains the Commissioner. “At the end of the day, we’ll have an indicator with several components that will help measure output, and we feel that’s the best way to go about it. And it will be based on a broad understanding of innovation.”

EU innovation autumn deadline

The new EU innovation plan should be revealed in September, in time for special discussions on research and innovation at the autumn European Council.

“The Plan will make clear my intention to refocus research and EU innovation policies very clearly on the so-called grand challenges facing our society: climate change, energy security, food security, health and an ageing population,” says Geoghegan-Quinn. “The ‘i-conomy’ depends on a strong science base. But we must also be able to transform our inventions into innovative products and services that the customer wants.”