Innovation, and in particular its new wave of deep-tech innovation, is the European reply to bring down greenhouse gas emissions, to make our economies more digital and to guarantee Europe’s food, energy and raw materials security.

The New European Innovation Agenda, adopted on 5 July 2022, aims to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep tech innovation and start-ups. It will help Europe to develop new technologies to address the most pressing societal challenges, and to bring them on the market. Europe wants to be the place where the best talent work hand in hand with the best companies and where deep tech innovation thrives and creates breakthrough innovative solutions across the continent.

The New European Innovation Agenda will:

• improve access to finance for European start-ups and scale-ups, for example, by mobilising untapped sources of private capital and simplifying listing rules
• improve the conditions to allow innovators to experiment with new ideas through regulatory sandboxes
• help create “regional innovation valleys” that will strengthen and better connect innovation players through Europe, including in regions lagging behind
• attract and retain talent in Europe, for example by training 1 million deep tech talents, increasing support for women innovators and innovating with start-up employees’ stock options
• improve the policy framework through clearer terminology, indicators and data sets, as well as policy support to Member States

Press Release: Commission presents new European Innovation Agenda to spearhead the new innovation wave

The New European Innovation Agenda focuses on five flagships:

• Funding Scale-Ups will mobilise institutional and other private investors in Europe to invest in, and benefit from the scaling of European deep-tech start-ups.
• Enabling innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement will facilitate innovation through improved framework conditions including experimental approaches to regulation (e.g. regulatory sandboxes, test beds, living labs and innovation procurement).
• Accelerating and strengthening innovation in European Innovation Ecosystems across the EU and addressing the innovation divide will support the creation of regional innovation valleys and help Member  States and regions direct at least €10 billion to concrete interregional innovation projects, including in deep-tech innovation for key EU priorities. It will also support Member States to foster innovation in all regions through the integrated use of cohesion policy and Horizon Europe instruments.
• Fostering, attracting and retaining talents will ensure the development and flow of essential deep tech talents in and to the EU through a series of initiatives including an innovation intern scheme for startups and scale-ups, an EU talent pool to help startups and innovative businesses find non-EU talent, a women entrepreneurship and leadership scheme and a pioneering work on startup employees’ stock options.
• Improving policy making tools will be the key for development and use of robust, comparable data sets and a shared definitions (startups, scale-up) that can inform policies at all levels across the EU and for ensuring better policy coordination at the European level through the European Innovation Council Forum.

Building on the substantive work that have been done already to foster innovation in the EU, the New European Innovation Agenda aims to accelerate the development and scaling up of innovation across the Union through a coherent set of 25 actions.

New European Innovation Agenda roadmap

A new European Innovation Agenda to spearhead the new innovation wave (Factsheet)

Staff working document

Throughout long consultations and co-creation processes with stakeholders, five broad action areas have emerged that are essential to boosting Europe’s innovation performance.

These five main areas are:

• Access to finance: scale-up gap
• Framework conditions, including legislation: scope for more pro-innovation regulation
• Fragmentation of the EU innovation ecosystem: need to strengthen and better connect innovation ecosystems
• Innovation performance: differences among EU regions
• Talent: developing, retaining and attracting entrepreneurial talents, encouraging diversity

Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem Survey Report

As a part of the stakeholder consultations process, in 2021, the Commission conducted a survey for innovation stakeholders to grasp their views on the challenges that Europe’s innovation ecosystem actors are facing, the opportunities foreseen ahead, and visions and ideas for future actions. The survey received a total of 239 responses from participants active in all 27 EU Member States, representing a wide range of innovation stakeholders, including: Universities and Research Organisations; individual Researchers, Innovators and Citizens of EU Member States; Small and Medium Enterprises, Businesses and Startups.

Stakeholders’ Group Consultations

The Coalition of the Willing is an independent umbrella group born out of the realisation that Europe needs a broad coalition of key European innovation stakeholders to ensure an efficient and effective implementation of the New European Innovation Agenda

With the Coalition of the Willing, innovative ecosystems, corporates, local authorities, and European Universities want to co-implement the Innovation Agenda while having clear and open communication lines with the European Commission, to improve processes where needed.

The Coalition of the Willing members are proposing concrete initiatives. As of December 2022, more than 30 initiatives, covering the five Innovation Agenda flagships, have been proposed.

The European Sounding Board on Innovation is an independent advisory vehicle stimulating further-development of strategic aspects of the European Innovation Agenda and discussions of emerging dossiers with high-level representatives from European academia and industry.

It is a transparent and impartial platform for an evidence-based, open and confident exchange amongst stakeholders from European industry, academia and the political sector. Its objective is to develop concrete recommendations and options for innovation activities and accompany their implementation, if needed, to ensure that Europe is leading the new wave of innovations.

Under Horizon Europe, the European Innovation Ecosystems projects will contribute to three flagships of the Agenda: scaling up deep-tech innovative companies; enabling innovation through experimentation spaces and innovative public procurement; and strengthening innovation ecosystems across the EU and addressing the innovation divide. See the factsheets for more information.

New European Innovation Agenda: the first EU-funded projects on the starting blocks

Skeda informattiva26 Jannar 2023

Scaling up of deep tech innovations

New European Innovation Agenda: the first EU-funded projects on the starting blocks

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Skeda informattiva25 Jannar 2023

Enabling innovation through innovation procurement

New European Innovation Agenda: the first EU-funded projects on the starting blocks

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Skeda informattiva26 Jannar 2023

Connected innovation ecosystems

New European Innovation Agenda: the first EU-funded projects on the starting blocks

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