Putting people at the heart of innovation

When looking at the technological advances in the USA, Asia and part of the Middle East, it is clear that Europe is lacking behind in many areas which will dominate the future areas of growth. Europe needs to catch up, speed up and renew its ambitions in research, development and innovation - not least when it comes to shaping the digital world. Innovation policy will decide how we can ensure our European way of life in the future.

The new technologies that will follow with the digital revolution will fundamentally transform traditional industries and enter into everybody’s daily life, well beyond just the ways we communicate through the internet and mobile networks.

It goes without saying that a highly IT-skilled workforce and innovative new business models are essential. However, our success will also depend on our ability to understand how to implement innovation into our daily life.

EU Member States should meet their target of 3% of GDP for research and innovation.

What we want to do in the next 5 years

The EPP Group will begin working in a very large number of policy areas related to innovation with the ambition of achieving concrete results on as many possible.

We believe that innovation can improve our citizens’ daily lives. One of the challenges is to regain citizens’ trust in a safe cyberspace. The EPP Group wants to create new EU cybersecurity research centres, update our strong standards for securing critical infrastructure (power plants, water plants) through a revision of the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS). We also want to create an EU cyber brigade to show we are equipped to defend ourselves based on our know-how.

Health, mobility, housing and energy are all areas in daily life where innovation can make a real difference. In health, we will advance projects to cure cancer and Alzheimers and develop personalised healthcare through big data applications with all the appropriate data security safeguards. In the area of mobility, solutions like cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) with intelligent roads and improved inter-modality and connectivity, semi-autonomous and autonomous driving, an increased level of electric vehicles and other low-emission alternatives such as fuel cells, will have our attention. For housing, our priorities in digital architecture will reduce the costs of construction, connected houses will save energy, and urban planning will better regulate traffic and anticipate neighbourhood development, promoting the concept of smart cities and smart villages.

Using innovative clean energy technologies will help us achieve the climate and energy goals, e.g. innovative green biogas from manure processing.

Innovation in space technologies will give us early warning systems for natural disasters; satellite mapping of global droughts, soil quality and land use change; rescue operations; mapping wildfires; car navigation; border controls and communication.

In agriculture, the use of robotics, precision technology and mapping technology will limit the use of pesticides; big data will give us the ability to monitor and identify animal diseases, fertiliser use and plant deficiencies; push the rolling-out of broadband internet access in rural areas; and create innovative manure processing to produce high-quality mineral concentrates as a sustainable replacement to mineral fertilizers.

Boosting innovation means better protection for our European cultural diversity and creative identity. We would like to see the emergence of a European Netflix, create a European Digital Library and increase investments in Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in Europe.

We want to get Europe ready for the next innovation wave. The EPP Group wants to deepen the Digital Single Market to end fragmentation and to create the highest-scale market. On a more technical aspect, a European Open Data Platform and an unlimited EU-wide free flow of data for large companies and start-ups are essential. A European Open Science Cloud and Data Platform are also priority.

We will work to improve access to financial markets for smart investments which would also facilitate the transition from the lab to the market - all too often, innovations are made but cannot be sold.

Europe must seize the ‘internet of things’, big data, block chain and the application of software opportunities. The upcoming research programme Horizon Europe will be based on new rules and the value of ideas to create a simple and fair process.

We want to establish a European start-up network, ‘Erasmus 4.0’, encourage the continuation and wider application of smart specialisation (e.g. Vanguard Initiative) for regions, continue the European Innovation Partnerships on Smart Cities and Communities and set up digital summer camps sponsored by companies. We want to strengthen networks of young innovators and entrepreneurs, e.g. through EIT knowledge and innovation communities.

The EPP Group believes in creating a digital social market economy: innovation should offer new job opportunities. We need to encourage new business models that create new jobs while preserving social standards in the digital economy. We will seek fair trade agreements for protecting our workers from unfair dumping. Professional life-long training is necessary to better adjust people’s skills to changes in the labour market. Developing new working condition models that improve the work-life balance in the digital age is also needed.

We want every citizen to be part of the Innovation Union. Participatory e-democracy (consultations, participation in decision-making processes, etc.) can help overcome low participation rates. We will look at the prospect of digital voting for the European elections in the future, paper-free administration inspired by Estonia. We could reduce red tape by 30% by simplifying the procedures and eliminating regulations that can be replaced by virtual simulation.

We want our ambitions to be reflected financially. Innovation must be among our top priorities in the next long-term budget (MFF) for the European Union. We want to dedicate €120 billion to research and innovation from 2021 to 2027. The rules and procedures to access EU funding should be simplified and we should be innovative in the implementation of the budget to avoid bureaucracy. Synergies between funds for research and innovation, structural funds, EFSI and other financial instruments should be created. We should prioritise our financial support, giving it to the best projects with real European benefit and that cannot be handled at national or regional level. Rules on EU structural funds should allow for greater inter-regional cooperation on innovation. Tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc. must contribute to this innovation wave through paying a new tax to access the EU Digital Single Market. The private sector should sponsor projects with a socially responsible impact, such as digital camps, digital life-long learning, digital literacy, digital integration etc. Access to venture capital and to loans should be facilitated for start-ups and SMEs.