Working paper

Matching research and innovation policies in EU countries

Europe has lofty ambitions for building a socially and environmentally sustainable future on the basis of growth and prosperity through innovation. De

Publishing date
22 December 2015

Highlights

The European Union has prioritised the pursuit of innovation based growth and targeting of resources to promote research and development, but performance on innovation remains weak.

With the lack of results comes fatigue, waning interest and mounting criticism about policy. Should the EU abandon its ambition to become the most innovative region in the world?

We examine EU member state research and innovation policies. We assess whether the deployment of innovation policy instruments in EU countries matches their innovation capacity performance relative to other EU countries.

We find a relative homogeneity of policy mixes in EU countries, despite the fairly wide and stable differences in their innovation capacities.

Our analysis therefore provides a rationale for a more comprehensive review of innovation policy mixes to assess their adequacy in addressing country specific innovation challenges.

About the authors

  • Reinhilde Veugelers

    Prof Dr. Reinhilde Veugelers is a full professor at KULeuven (BE) at the Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation.  She has been a Senior fellow at Bruegel since 2009.  She is also a CEPR Research Fellow, a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and of the Academia Europeana. From 2004-2008, she was on academic leave, as advisor at the European Commission (BEPA Bureau of European Policy Analysis).  She served on the ERC Scientific Council from 2012-2018 and on the RISE Expert Group advising the commissioner for Research.  She is a member of VARIO, the expert group advising the Flemish minister for Innovation. She is currently a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journal Science and a co-PI on the Science of Science Funding Initiative at NBER.

    With her research concentrated in the fields of industrial organisation, international economics and strategy, innovation and science, she has authored numerous well cited publications in leading international journals.  Specific recent topics include novelty in technology development,  international technology transfers through MNEs, global innovation value chains, young innovative companies, innovation for climate change,  industry science links and their impact on firm’s innovative productivity, evaluation of research & innovation policy,  explaining scientific productivity,  researchers’ international mobility,  novel scientific research.

    Websites:
    https://feb.kuleuven.be/reinhilde.veugelers
    https://bruegel.org/author/reinhilde-veugelers/

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