Europe has not yet completely recovered from the economic and financial crisis. Investments in industry remain low and, despite its technological leadership and skills, Europe’s ability to respond to the challenge of worldwide competition could be compromised.
As Jean-Claude Juncker, the president-elect of the European commission, has declared, “We need to maintain and reinforce a strong and high-performing industrial base for our internal market, as it would be naïve to believe that growth in Europe could be built on the basis of services alone.”
Europe should maintain its global leadership in strategic sectors with high-value jobs such as the automotive, aeronautics, engineering, space, chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. To achieve this, we need to stimulate investment in research and innovation (R&I), and ensure that workers have the skills industry needs.
The European Union will invest €80bn in research and innovation activities from 2014 to 2020, through the new EU research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. Key enabling technologies (KETs) are an essential part of Horizon 2020 as they can transform research results into industrially relevant technologies and innovative and sustainable products and by that token, create economic growth and jobs. KETs and their combinations also have the potential to lead to unforeseen advances and new markets.
KETs can boost manufacturing capacities, in an efficient and sustainable way. They are present in every ‘smart’ device, such as mobile phones, car batteries, solar cells, and robotics. Their take up needs to be facilitated as they drive innovation and will provide solutions for the climate and energy challenges, clean transport, personalised medicine, resource and energy efficiency in industry, to name a few.
It should be acknowledged at all levels that to achieve the EU policy objectives related to those societal challenges, Europe depends on key enabling technologies. This will be the focus of the Leading and enabling technologies for societal challenges (LET’S) 2014 conference, organised under the Italian presidency of the council of the European Union in Bologna, Italy, on 29 September – 1 October. This initiative, to which the European parliament has granted its high patronage, aims to reach a common vision of what European industry should look like in the future to ensure the social and economic wellbeing of EU citizens.
"It is undisputed that investment in KETs is essential as economies that master them cope better with the economic crisis"
The LET’S 2014 conference is expected to gather over a thousand participants, including public and private researchers, professors, trainers, technology transfer professionals, entrepreneurs, technology platforms and industrial associations members, technology suppliers, service innovators, investors, policymakers and social players. The conference will focus on the capacity of scientific research to steer results towards increased sustainability, reduced environmental impact of urbanisation, improved health and security for all and the ability to face unexpected events. Both the social leadership and the industrial leadership aspects will be elaborated in an integrated way during the two and a half days event, sharing approaches, findings, experiences and perspectives among the major European stakeholders. In addition, the application of the future emerging technologies and the key enabling technologies for social purposes will be investigated through lectures, best practice discussions, site visits and matchmaking. Their results will be the indicators of the real possibility for Europe to move forward to a new industrial renaissance.
It is undisputed that investment in KETs is essential as economies that master them cope better with the economic crisis, and to ensure that European industry remains strong in the key areas where it can increase its competitiveness and create more and better jobs. The KETs programme will finance closer-to market prototypes and demonstration projects, so that research results reach the market and bring concrete benefits to a sustainable society. Horizon 2020 has the biggest R&I budget ever, but the portion allocated to key enabling technologies has not increased since the previous EU research framework programmes. We therefore need to make careful choices to ensure the best impact and leverage of research and innovation projects.
All breakthrough innovations that are currently on the table require billions of euros of industrial investment to reach the market. It is the responsibility of policymakers to ensure that appropriate policy and market conditions are in place to leverage this investment. And it is the responsibility of industrialists to seize these opportunities.