The future of industry in Europe. Study

This study analyses the key challenges for Local and Regional Authorities (LRAs) in developing a long-term, structured industrial policy, with a global view. The policy should promote structural change and raise the industrial contribution to GDP to the 20% target set by the European Commission (EC) in December 2014.

New means of production incorporate a mix of processes located in both high-cost and low-cost countries and are based on a wide range of factors enabled by technological developments. Significant changes in consumption are increasingly driven by individual needs which are more sensitive to social and environmental aspects. Together these require a more flexible, hybrid and servitisation-oriented industrial paradigm.

The way LRAs can guide this shift strictly depends on their ability to combine strengths in traditional sectors with innovative trajectories of industrial development in dynamic new sectors. Faced with a growing complexity of industrial challenges, LRAs are called on to design and implement a systemic industrial policy coordinated with national and EU level policies, pulled by vision and pushed by competition.