From Co-creation to Co-implementation: let’s make Europe the global powerhouse for deep tech innovation!

The European industry is concerned about its future competitiveness, and our society is anxious about the numerous challenges that lie ahead.

Deep tech innovation, in many cases industrial innovation with a purpose, is our best bet for addressing the most pressing societal issues and ensuring a long-lasting competitiveness of our industry and economy.

But this is a shared goal, and we can only solve it by working together to execute the New European Innovation, with its first-of-its kind Agenda. We will reach this ambition by working on concrete synergies, at every corner of the continent: from the work done by the Network of European Innovative Universities to the efforts of our growing Coalition of the Willing community!

A vision with concrete actions.

The Agenda is the result of roughly 18 months of co-creation, during which time hundreds of sessions were held. Together, we must now put its 25-related measures, grouped in 5 flagships, into effect.

From #Slush22 to my recent visit to Munich at the National Academy of Science and Engineering – acatech – Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften or during our inspiring European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) Summit 2022, my message to talented entrepreneurs and innovators is clear: if we work together, we will achieve more, we will go further, and we will reach concrete results!

In this light, I was excited to delve into the Co-implementation process with the Slush startup community, with founders and investors, gathered in Finland at the world’s leading event with and for start-ups.

At the opening keynote, I told the crowd that the startup community is ready to work hand in hand with us to co-implement the 25 measures of the NEIA to make Europe the worldwide powerhouse for deep tech innovation and entrepreneurship.

We had lively discussions about the main novelties of the Agenda:

·????? To increase amount of capital for deep tech startups, with 45 billion € as a target. How: with a new listing act, expanding ESCALAR mechanism. The objective is to make companies stay and grow in Europe!

·??????To expand the use of sandboxes and places throughout Europe to allow entrepreneurs to test and try their ideas.

·??????To launch a platform to allow innovative businesses to hire people from outside Europe if their skills do not exist in the EU.

·??????To create 100 deep tech innovation valleys helping European regions to leverage cohesion funds and use the new Innospace platform to bring all ecosystem together.

·??????To start the process to train 1 million talents in deep tech domains!

·??????To get a European definition of startup, scaleups and collect data about their evolution and growth.

Cohesion at the core of our ecosystem approach.

A week later, in Germany, I had the honour to attend the launch of the new European Sounding Board on Innovation by acatech Presidents Jan Woerner and Reinhard Ploss and to officially welcome 8 new regional innovation valleys.

This Sounding Board will make sure that business and education leaders from all European Member States work together with the startup ecosystem and policymakers to put the Innovation Agenda into action. To guarantee that the expertise of both business and academics is taken into account during the Agenda's implementation, we will also hold regular High-Level Roundtables.

The innovation Agenda provides the mechanisms to ensure that startups and industry work together, from the start of the innovation process and most of all, with a genuine entrepreneurial spirit transmitted to younger generations.

We will also be using the "venture client" model perfected right here in Europe - in Germany in particular. To put it simply, unless established businesses and new ones work together from the get-go, the former will not be able to drastically improve upon the products and services that are vital to their operations. There is no way that established companies will suddenly start incorporating a radical new idea from a startup into their operations. Unless they have a defined working arrangement where they can work side by side!

In recent months, I've noticed a growing number of innovative players prepared to help with the joint implementation of the Innovation Agenda. To achieve our shared vision of creating Europe the world's preeminent hub for deep tech innovation, these groups have banded together to form a "Coalition of the Willing."

Backing visionary entrepreneurs with the European Innovation Council.

I witnessed this coalition’s energy during our annual #EICSummit22 . Connect, scale and co-implement were the key words of this successful event gathering more than 1000 participants in Brussels.

This was also the opportunity to present the EIC impact report. So far, the organisation has supported more than 1600 startups and SMEs, 500 research projects – of which 12 are now European unicorns. The EIC is developing efforts to put innovation to the forefront, always keeping in our vision the necessity to build on our regions and cities’ strengths.

I was particularly delighted to hand-over the Capital of Innovation 22’ Awards to Métropole Aix-Marseille-Provence , with Espoon kaupunki - Esbo stad - City of Espoo and València Activa following and also the Rising Innovative City Award to Haarlem, with Mainz and Aveiro in 2nd and 3rd top positions.

Innovation with talents.

To make our European Innovation Agenda succeed, we will need all talents. And here, our women entrepreneurs are changing the face and the pace of innovation in Europe! I was proud to congratulate all 22’ #WiPrizeEU finalists and winners, with Niamh Donnelly, Iva Gumnishka and Mehka Mumtaz awarded in the Rising Women Innovators category and Rocio Arroyo, Ciara Clancy and Nina Granucci as top-3 Women innovators.

In line with this genuine ecosystem approach, boosted by hard-working communities, I would also like to put the focus on our EIC Forum members, who published last week inspiring policy orientations for 2022, to shape the future of our concrete innovation actions.

And to continue to join forces in the next months, I am particularly proud to recall that the new 2023 EIC Work Programme was recently adopted, with 1.6 billion € of funding for deep tech startups, increasing talent flows and improving Europe’s innovative performance!

Today, after this EIC Summit and before the start of 2023, to make our ongoing efforts more visible, for positive impact, I call my LinkedIn community to sign up and join the Coalition of the Willing www.coalitionofthewilling.eu !

I am excited to collaborate with you on this life-changing mission, to ensure Europe remains a global leader in innovation towards economic prosperity, quality jobs and stronger impact for citizens.

Europe is often seen as being “strong in ideas”. I do believe that, together, Europe can be stronger with solutions”.