The 'Stimulating Innovation' report, due to be officially launched in July, argues that while G20 governments have set aside more than $200 billion for new innovation programmes, there has been little coordination between them.
The UK, for example, is putting $2.1 billion toward loan guarantees for SMEs, while Germany is extending its write-downs, the study notes.
The report was presented at a high-profile meeting in Brussels this week (2 June), which brought together policymakers, university leaders and innovation experts from both the private and public sectors.
They argued that innovation ideas must be coordinated between countries in order to maximise the value of the many economic recovery packages currently in force.
"In 1944, the world's economic leaders met at a resort in New Hampshire called Bretton Woods, and initiated a new economic order. Now, in the age of the knowledge economy, we believe that a new effort at global collaboration is needed," says the declaration, signed by innovation leaders from across the EU.
Talk first, act later
Without cross-border cooperation, they concluded, industrialised countries including the EU member states would lose out in the long run.
Dialogue is the key, they argued. "The declaration suggests, as a first step, international discussion comparing and studying each country's experiences of what actually works and what doesn't when trying to stimulate innovation." Such best-practice comparisons would eliminate unnecessary - and costly - trial and error, cutting down on needless investment in research that has been successfully carried out elsewhere.
Green tech and ageing 'obvious starting points'
"A relatively easy area in which to start collaborating," says the report, is in "R&D and innovation-incentives intended to solve the grand challenges of our day – including research on climate change, alternative energy and healthcare for an ageing population".
It also identifies scientific visas, intellectual property rules and "other legal regimes that limit mobility of researchers and ideas" as areas where heightened international cooperation is not only desirable but imperative.
However, the speakers were less clear on precisely what measures countries should take, or what new mechanisms they should set up, to achieve these cooperative goals.
