Promoting innovation in the European Union: on the development of sound competition and industrial policies

Summary:

Science, technology, innovation, and competitiveness are subjects that concern almost every government in the world. In the current global environment, the capacity of an economy to derive competitive advantages through technical change and innovation is at the core of its ability to sustain economic growth and competitiveness.

Policy makers are therefore challenged daily to create policies and programs that allow firms and institutions to innovate and diffuse, adapt, and apply information and knowledge efficiently and effectively.

In the European Union (EU), policymakers are under particular pressure to make swift policy changes so that the EU can meet its Lisbon Strategy goal of becoming the most “competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth” by 2010.2