Tag: Innovation -keyw

Healthcare innovations such as eHealth and telemedicine offer new prospects for cost savings and improved quality of care, but expensive new technologies are also driving medical inflation and the benefits may not always be distributed equally.

The fruits of EU research are not being converted into marketable products due to difficulties in funding expensive "demonstration" projects, according to Bernhard Schleich of SusChem, a European technology platform for sustainable chemistry.

The EU commissioners for innovation and industry are drawing up a new policy paper to feed into a top-level debate on the direction of innovation strategy.

Governments, industry and stakeholders have weighed into the debate on the EU's new growth strategy, urging a stronger social dimension and the completion of the internal market.

Plans to unveil an Innovation Act in time for the spring meeting of EU leaders have been stalled while the new European Commission beds down and looks at broadening the scope of the strategy.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has unveiled three major new innovation clusters focusing on climate, energy and information technology. Each of the initiatives will bring together academia and industry at several locations across Europe.

Ireland's Máire Geoghegan Quinn has been handed the newly-created innovation portfolio at the EU executive.

The drive to "green" the EU economy will only succeed if it provides real solutions for low income earners and works towards a "renewed sense of shared prosperity," according to Mario Sepi, president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), an EU advisory body.

The drive to 'green' the EU economy will only succeed if it provides real solutions for low income households and works towards a "renewed sense of shared prosperity," European Economic and Social Committee President Mario Sepi told EurActiv in an interview.

Europe's chronic shortage of finance for young innovative companies will cause it to fall further behind global competitors, according to a business lobby group which wants governments to back entrepreneurs through tax incentives.

The newly-elected director-general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, presented to EurActiv in an interview her ambitious plans for the organisation, responsible for promoting education, science and culture throughout the world. She attached special importance to francophony. 

Innovation is set to take centre-stage in the new European Commission, which could mean having an 'innovation super-commissioner', a special advisor on innovation or even handing ultimate control to the Commission president.

Corporations are pumping billions of euros into e-health R&D in a bid to steal a march on competitors in a sector expected to be a major driver of economic growth, Pamela Passman, corporate vice-president at Microsoft, told EurActiv in an interview.

European innovation policy must recognise the importance of "culture-based creativity" as well as economic and technological innovation if the EU is to fulfil its creative potential, argues a new study published today (16 July).

An EU-funded art exhibition promoting imagination and creativity, unveiled by the European Commission yesterday (18 June), will be showcased at the Couleur Café festival in Brussels.

A report to be published in a month's time lambasts national recovery plans for failing to achieve global coordination of innovation policies to combat the recession. It concludes that a massive global conference on innovation is needed to promote cross-border collaboration.

The Swedish EU Presidency should advance Europe's R&D agenda via a regional-based approach, argues Claus Schultze, director of the European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN), in a post on Blogactiv.

Traditional media organisations are not well positioned to cover innovation, according to David Nordfors, director of the VINNOVA Research Center of Innovation Journalism at Stanford University. In an interview with EurActiv, Nordfors said newsrooms tend to divide issues into sections like business, technology and politics, but described innovation as an horizontal issue which cuts across several topics.

Innovation is a catalyst for sustainability in Europe's chemicals sector, Dr Gernot Klotz, executive director of research and innovation at industry body Cefic, told EurActiv in a wide-ranging interview.

A leading French expert in technology transfer has highlighted research partnerships with SMEs as an efficient way to bring innovative new products to market. In an interview with EurActiv, Dr Bruno Sportisse, from the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), said working with SMEs may be challenging but can have a major impact.

Human resources and flexibility in the workplace are the primary ingredients in fostering an innovative culture, Professor Bengt-Åke Lundvall, an innovation researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark, told EurActiv in an interview.

"Within a single generation, we can give Europe a truly sustainable energy system," writes EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs in a February paper for the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

It is a good thing that European political leaders striving to create new jobs "have also been trying to encourage start-up companies," argue members of the Science-Business Innovation Board (SBIB) in a January paper.

Europe's innovation and research policies were designed for developed Western European countries and do little to help boost the developing economies of the Union's eastern members, according to Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.