EU in 2040 – envisioning innovation and economic growth
© 2016 EPFL
Five CDM professors together with other faculty from the EuroTech Universities Alliance have published a paper addressing several key challenges to build a sustainable European economy by 2040.
As an effort to close the so-called innovation gap with the USA and South Korea, researchers argue that Europe needs to develop a unique European edge, in order to inform and inspire EU politics and policy making. The researchers (who include professors Chris Tucci, Dominique Foray, Gaétan de Rassenfosse, Thomas Weber and Marc Gruber) have developed five conditions to reach an inclusive and sustainable innovation-driven European economy in 2040:
1. Tertiary Education and Fundamental Research: Transforming the educational and research landscape, by allocating public budgets to universities that systematically connect research and education.
2. Young Innovative Firms: creating an ideal setting for young entrepreneurs and their innovative companies, to enable a virtuous cycle of new (academic) ideas, creating start-ups, scaling them up, and demand for and supply of investment capital.
3. Transforming the Tax System: transforming the highly fragmented landscape of national tax systems into a simple and transparent tax system that fuels rather than inhibits innovation and growth.
4. Ensuring Appropriate Rewards and Incentives for Innovators: crafting a well-functioning patent system and market for technology, to ensure appropriate rewards and incentives for innovators in the age of open innovation.
5. Smart Specialisation: building and mobilizing local innovation ecologies, especially those in less-advanced regions, through smart specialization.
According to the authors, “these five conditions would create a European economy/society in 2040 that acts as a powerhouse for innovation and economic growth, while being inclusive towards less-developed regions and fully transparent towards investors, entrepreneurs and inventors”.
The full paper will also be published as a Policy Brief by the Institute of Technology & Public Policy at EPFL.