The 5th of July the European Commission adopted a New European Innovation Agenda, with the aim to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep tech innovation and start-ups. It is hoped that the Agenda will help Europe to develop new technologies to address the most pressing societal challenges, and to bring them on the market. Europe wants in fact to be the place where the best talent work hand in hand with the best companies and where deep tech innovation thrives and creates breakthrough innovative solutions across the continent.

By leading on innovation, in particular on the new wave of deep-tech innovation requiring breakthrough R&D and large capital investment, Europe will reinforce its central role in shaping the green and digital transitions. Deep tech innovation will reinforce Europe’s technological leadership and generate innovative solutions to pressing societal challenges, such as climate change and cyberthreats. Such innovations are likely to  benefit all sectors from renewable energy to agri-tech, from construction to mobility and health, thereby tackling food security, reducing energy dependency, improving people’s health and making Member States economies more competitive

The Agenda sets out 25 actions under five guidelines :

  • Funding Scale-Ups will mobilise institutional and other private investors in Europe to invest in, and benefit from the scaling of European deep-tech start-ups.
  • Enabling innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement will facilitate innovation through improved framework conditions including experimental approaches to regulation (e.g. regulatory sandboxes, test beds, living labs and innovation procurement).
  • Accelerating and strengthening innovation in European Innovation Ecosystems across the EU will support the creation of regional innovation valleys and help Member States and regions direct at least EUR 10 billion to concrete interregional innovation projects, including in deep-tech innovation for key EU priorities. It will also support Member States to foster innovation in all regions through the integrated use of cohesion policy and Horizon Europe instruments.
  • Fostering, attracting and retaining deep tech talents will ensure the development and flow of essential deep tech talents in and to the EU through a series of initiatives including an innovation intern scheme for startups and scale-ups, an EU talent pool to help startups and innovative businesses find non-EU talent, a women entrepreneurship and leadership scheme and a pioneering work on startup employees’ stock options.
  • Improving policy making tools will be the key for development and use of robust, comparable data sets and a shared definitions (startups, scale-up) that can inform policies at all levels across the EU and for ensuring better policy coordination at the European level through the European Innovation Council Forum.

for more information, please contact the Secretariat of EurEta