Arbeitskreis Bau 3. April

Peter Dröll

Referatsleiter, Weiterentwicklung der Innovationspolitik,DG Unternehmen

Overview of presentation:

1. Current situation: innovation in Europe

2. What is the Lead Market Initiative?

3. Sustainable construction/ Eine Leitmarktinitiative für Europa nachhaltiges Bauen

4. Next steps in innovation policy in Europe

1. Overall innovation performance summary innovation index of 29 indicators (2007 & 2006 data)

Summary innovation performance EU Member States (2008 SII)

0.000

0.100

0.200

0.300

0.400

0.500

0.600

0.700

TR BG LV RO HR LT P L SK HU MT IT GR P T ES NO CZ SI EE IS CY EU NL FR BE LU IE AT UK DK DE FI SE CH

Germany is one of the Innovation leaders Relative strengths: Innovators and Economic effects

Relative weaknesses are in Human resources, Finance and support and Throughputs.

Performance in Innovators has slightly worsened, due to a decrease in SMEs introducing product or process innovations

The basis

Commission2005: « More Research

and Innovation – Investing for Growth and Employment »

2006: « A broad-based innovation strategy for Europe: putting knowledge into practice »

10 actions

Council► integrated approach,

structural funds, state aid, industry-academia cooperation, services

► 9 Priorities: IPR, Standardisation, Public procurement, JTIs, Lead markets, EIT, Clusters & Cohesion, Services, Risk capital

The idea….

2. Demand side policy in practice: Lead Market Initiative

Supply-side measures

Demand-side measures

- regulation- procurement

- R&D fu

nding

- Equity

support

- Fis

cal m

easu

res

…

- standardisation- clusters?

Package = LMI

Complementing supply-side innovation policy

Lead Market Initiative

= coherent, short-term,

demand-side instrument mix

+6 sectors

(including sustainable construction)

+ governance structure

3. Main barriers to innovation addressed in the action plan of the lead market of sustainable construction (4):

Public procurement (1/4):

Too much focus on initial costs:

many key decisions are taken on the basis of the lowest costs instead of quality, safety and environmental criteria and life-cycle costs.

Action: Establish a network between public authorities in charge of procuring sustainable construction

Legislation (2/4)

Highly fragmented landscape of national and EU legislation

Policy coherence: a more strategic and integrated approach in EU legislation in the areas of energy, environment, internal market and health

Action: Screening of national building regulations

Standardisation/ certification (3/4)

Over 3000 standards in EU apply to the construction sector, whereby only 300 are commonly used.

Actual standardisation process is very fragmented and adapting slowly to technological progress and market development.

Action: Widening the scope of Eurocodes (2nd generation)

Other issues (examples) (4/4):

• Fragmentation of the supply chain• Lack of adequate education and skills for innovation

uptake • Liability issues and risks linked to the long-term

consequences of failures (insurance industry)

Actions: SMEs guide on collaborative working schemes in

construction projects Alternative warranty/label schemes related to construction

insurance EU-wide strategy to facilitate the up-grading of skills and

competencies in the construction sector

How can I get involved?

• EEN network (Sector Groups)

• Steering Group of the sustainable construction lead market (contains most European federations)

• Member State members of the Enterprise Policy Group (led by DG Enterprise)

4. Next steps in innovation policy in Europe

Development of a European Plan for Innovation – next steps

Commission Communication (before summer 2009) Assessing progress under Broad

Based Innovation Strategy Policy papers on:

• Mid-term progress report of Lead Markets Initiative

• Service innovation• Effectiveness of innovation support• Financing innovation in SMEs

European Plan for Innovation (end 2009), linked to Lisbon Strategy post-2010

Sta

kehold

er co

nsu

ltatio

ns,

worksh

ops, su

pportin

g stu

die

s an

d a

naly

sis

Development of a European Plan for Innovation:

Some challenges

Challenge: Bridging demand (emerging social needs) with supply (of innovations)

mobility

Active ageing security

environment

Challenge: how can innovation policy address societal challenges?

A final word on innovation and economic crisis

Innovation and economic crisis

Darwin:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Impact of financial crisis and economic downturn does not yet show in indicators, but:

Countries with higher innovation capacity better placed to recover faster. Hence EU better placed than 5 years ago but still behind US.

EU firms under investment in research and innovation is a particular concern.

References:

• Homepage DG enterprise: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/index_en.htm

• Homepage European innovation policy:http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/innovation/index_en.htm

• Homepage Lead Market Initiative:http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/leadmarket/leadmarket.htm

• Contact address LMI/ Henriette van Eijl: ENTR-LMI@ec.europa.eu

Thank you for your attention