In a bid to increase European competitity in the global research arena the European Commission announced new measures destined to encourage public and private players across Europe to upgrade their research effort.
'Investing in research: an action plan for Europe' sets out initiatives required to increase the level of investment in research in the EU from 1.9 per cent to 3 per cent of GDP, with two-thirds financed by the private sector, as called for by the March 2002 Barcelona European Council.
"This blueprint for action marks the start of a process which has the potential to turn around Europe's R&D fortunes and put the Union on track to meet its 3 per cent of GDP objective by 2010," said Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin. "This is Europe's chance to boost its competitive potential and to ensure sustained improvements to people's quality of life."
Meeting the 3 per cent objective is expected to create 0.5 per cent additional growth of GDP and 400,000 additional jobs every year after 2010. Key actions include setting up European technology platforms, strengthening links between industry and public research, redirecting public spending towards research and innovation, making research careers more attractive and developing better fiscal incentives for research.
Measures outlined in the European Communciation (COM(2003)) 226) include improving framework conditions of research and innovation such as intellectual property rights, competition rules, financial markets, and the fiscal environment, bettering the range and effectiveness of fiscal measures to encourage increased investment in R&D and also, improving access to capital, in particular risk and venture capital, and guarantee schemes, especially for innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
In March 2000, at the Lisbon European Council, European heads of state and government set the Union the goal of becoming by 2010 "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of EU social cohesion."