Boosting the European innovation ecosystem
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The European Union will become an innovation powerhouse only by leveraging excellent research. But at a policy level, policymakers have increased the emphasis on innovative solutions based on known technological applications. Therefore, The Guild has needed to reassert, through the activities of its Innovation working group, how crucial it is that EU innovation policy, from its strategy to the implementation modalities of its instruments, fully engages universities and gives them the means to best nurture and support innovative activities and ecosystems.
The European Innovation Council
Despite our advocacy actions and this mounting political pressure, we felt that the amendments proposed by the European Commission to the EIC IP rules were insufficient to solve our concerns and to give universities all the means they need to deploy their knowledge valorisation strategies. For this reason, we joined forces with nine associations of research-performing organisations and knowledge transfer professionals and experts. In a joint statement published in December 2022, we called for IP rules that overcome (rather than create) legal uncertainties, and that are compatible with state aid rules and competition law. We urged IP rules that fostered the necessary collaboration between researchers and universities instead of pitting them against each other.
Svein Stølen’s visit in Silicon Valley
In March 2023, The Guild’s Chair Svein Stølen took part in a high-level delegation headed by Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, together with entrepreneurs, university rectors, investors, innovation actors and policymakers, to Silicon Valley. This visit aimed to attract talent and increase investments in Europe, share best practices and bridge gaps between the different research and innovation ecosystems.
Svein Stølen emphasised that buoyant innovation ecosystems like Silicon Valley rely on scientific excellence conducted at universities. Calling for nurturing and strengthening transatlantic cooperation, he stressed the need to better utilise existing instruments such as Erasmus+. He also proposed to build on the experience gained through the European University Initiative to increase EU-US student and academic staff mobility. Going forward, Stølen suggested building on our complementary research strengths, securing the process by which the ecosystems of research and innovation also tap into disruptive fundamental research, and working on improving frameworks for data sharing.
The New European Innovation Agenda
The Guild has raised concerns that the New European Innovation Agenda published in July 2022 focuses on deep tech innovation and neglects the roles of universities in nurturing innovation. The meeting of our Innovation working group in August 2022 in Tartu, in parallel to the sTARTUp Day 2022, was an excellent opportunity to highlight the multifaceted nature of innovation, and the importance of universities in it. It showcased and discussed the University of Tartu’s activities in fostering entrepreneurship, promoting collaboration with nonacademic actors, and, in sum, orchestrating the local innovation ecosystem.