Europe needs a broad-based innovation strategy to boost its competitiveness. To facilitate the knowledge transfer between research centres and businesses, the European Parliament suggests the creation of 'knowledge regions', new measures to protect inventors, and tax incentives for enterprises which invest in research and innovation. This was the message of a report adopted by the House in Strasbourg.


"The paradox of the situation in Europe is that we have highly developed centres for the development of knowledge - centres of excellence, but with little economic impetus to use that knowledge as a basis for developing innovative activities", states rapporteur Adam GIEREK (PES, PL). To improve the knowledge transfer between research centres and industry, the EP, therefore, encourages the Member States to promote 'knowledge regions' or 'clusters' - i.e. regional networks of businesses, suppliers, and research centres, such as Silicon Valley in the USA. These knowledge regions should build on the experiences of Euroregions and EUREKA clusters. EUREKA is a pan-European intergovernmental research initiative with the aim to launch longer-term, strategically significant industrial projects e.g. in the fields of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), energy and biotechnology.

Furthermore, MEPs stress that a future European Institute of Technology (EIT) should invest in the relationship between knowledge institutions and businesses through a focus on innovation. Such an institute should help "to boost competition in innovation fields" and could make "a significant contribution to translating Europe’s potential for innovation into practice".

Risk capital funds and tax incentives

According to Parliament, the current venture capital system does not meet the funding needs of SMEs, micro enterprises and entrepreneurs. Member States should therefore use public funds to establish risk capital funds in the form of public-private partnerships in regions and fields "having innovative potential and a sound knowledge base". MEPs regret that so far "systematic public support with transparent conditions is missing". Moreover, Member States should consider implementing tax incentives to encourage enterprises to invest more in research, development and innovation.

New measures to protect patents

MEPs also state that "reasonable and reliable copyright protection and patent systems are crucial elements in building an innovative knowledge-based economy and society". The Commission and Member States should therefore - in the context of the new Community patent - work on "a procedure for eliminating trivial patents and sleeping patents". The EP also calls on alternative and complementary measures to defend inventors and emerging models of creation such as FLOSS (free/open source software) licensing systems.

Finally, the House calls on the Commission and the European Investment Bank to examine the possibilities for providing small businesses with adequate financial support for their patent applications.