In diesem ‚CEPS Policy Brief‘ heißt es, dass
die relative Ineffizienz der europäischen Foschung und
Entwicklung zum großen Teil die Konsequenz der
segmentierten öffentlichen
Forschungsbemühungen und sich überschneidender
Forschungsprogramme, die miteinander im Wettbewerb stehen,
sei. Hieraus ergebe sich eine zu geringe Nutzung der
verfügbaren menschlichen Ressourcen.
In March 2000 in Lisbon, EU heads of state
and government set the strategic goal to become
the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world, capable
of sustainable economic growth with more and
better jobs and greater social cohesion. These
goals were confirmed at the Barcelona European
Council, which added that investment in
European R&D should be increased to 3% of
GDP by 2010.
A recent CEPS Working Paper by Laura
Bottazzi argues that the weakness of R&D
and the slow accumulation of knowledge in the
EU is probably a major reason why Europe has
failed to catch up with the US productivity
performance during recent decades.
Yet the emphasis of the Barcelona Council on
the spending target for R&D could be
misplaced, as the question is not so much one
of increasing the level but rather of enhancing
the efficiency of R&D in Europe. Further,
actively subsidising investment by venture
capitalists may not necessarily deliver the
desired results, as a large part of European
venture capital finds it way to the American
capital market and thus does not necessarily
benefit innovation in Europe.
Consequently, policy measures aimed at
enhancing the efficiency and productivity of
R&D in Europe should focus on the level of
knowledge of workers and the capacity of
entrepreneurs to translate scientific
excellence into viable technological
innovation.
The policy brief adds to the discussion that
the relative inefficiency of European R&D
is to a considerable extent the result of the
segmentation of public research efforts and
overlapping of competing research programmes,
and thus underutilisation of the available
human resources.
The time has now come to create an
integrated EU market for research and
researchers.
To read the full
CEPS
policy brief by
Daniel Gros and Jørgen
Mortensen
.