Driving the innovation ecosystem forward

Here are some key messages from the wide-ranging and in-depth discussions:

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• Turning research and innovation potential into lasting strength:
  Europe boasts excellent research, innovative start-ups and a strong industrial base. It is crucial to develop these into globally successful companies and industrial value creation, whilst at the same time securing technological leadership through long-term capacity-building, high-performance research infrastructures and critical mass.

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• Greater speed:
  In the global technology race, speed is increasingly becoming a decisive competitive factor. Europe must speed up decision-making and approval processes, mobilise investment more quickly and scale up successful technologies more rapidly.

• ​​Focusing on Europe’s strengths:
  Europe does not need to be a leader in every technology, but should build critical mass and establish international leadership in those areas where scientific excellence, industrial strength and strategic relevance converge.

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• Building resilience from the outset:
  Critical infrastructure and technological systems must be designed to be robust, adaptable and secure from the outset; this also includes diversified supply chains and reliable access to critical technologies.

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• Bringing research and industry closer together:
  Scientific excellence must be translated more quickly into technological and economic impact – through seamless transfer pathways between universities, non-university research organisations, start-ups and industry, as well as through better opportunities for demonstration, testing and scaling up.

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• Mobilising more growth capital:
  A deeper and more integrated European capital market, more private growth capital and attractive exit opportunities are crucial to enabling innovative companies in Europe to scale up.

• ​Thinking of Europe as a single market:
  Technology companies need a European home market in which they can scale up rapidly. To achieve this, national fragmentation and regulatory barriers must be reduced, and strategic investment must be coordinated more closely at European level.​
   

• Securing access to critical resources:
  Technological sovereignty requires reliable access to critical raw materials, energy and intermediate goods. Europe must reduce one-sided dependencies, promote the circular economy and substitution, and make its supply chains more resilient through diversified international partnerships.

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• Taking dual-use potential into account strategically:
  Many key technologies are relevant to both civilian and security and defence applications. These interrelationships should be taken into account at an early stage, and security – in the sense of ‘security by design’ – should be factored in from the outset.

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• Strengthening technological sovereignty:
  Technological sovereignty does not mean self-sufficiency, but rather Europe’s ability to make independent decisions and take action regarding critical technologies, and to possess the necessary expertise and capacity to do so – whilst remaining open to trustworthy international partnerships.