The European Commission launched on September 4th a public consultation in search of the best strategies to boost Europe's leadership in ICT (Information and Communications Technology) research and innovation in the next decade. The public consultation will be opened for contributions  until November 7th 2008.

Contributions from industry, ICT experts, policy-makers and the wider public will be fed into a new strategy for ICT research and innovation, to be unveiled next year. The aim is to put European ICT industry, especially SMEs, to the fore of the race for global competitiveness.

This consultation is part of the European Commission's response to the recent expert report headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho, which pointed out a number of key failings of ICT research and innovation in Europe. In particular, Europe is underperforming in both the level and intensity of its research and innovation investments: today, 33% of research and innovation in developed economies worldwide is in ICT, while in Europe it accounts for less than 25%, mainly because it is highly fragmented. Furthermore, the EU represents 32% of the global ICT market, but European firms only take up 22% of the global market.

As Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media pointed out, "ICT is the primal force for innovation and development in the global economy, which is why Europe must attract investments in ICT research and development and the best minds and ideas”, adding that EU is facing challenges in energy, health and ageing that can only be tackled if deploying ICT solutions. She stressed that “this consultation is the first step towards an integrated strategy for research and innovation in the ICT sector that I will put on the table early next year."

In this context, EU has been strongly developing measures, such as the launch of the ICT Policy Support Programme, which aims to stimulate the development ICT products and services, improving competitiveness.

The European Commission plans to respond to these challenges through a "no holds barred" review of its ICT research and innovation strategy. The consultation asks three main questions:

1. What are the main challenges ahead for ICT research and innovation? As the ICT revolution continues, what are Europe's key priorities for research and innovation?
2. How, and in what fields, should Europe aim to lead? Europe has world industrial and technological leaders in key fields such as telecommunications and embedded systems. How can advances in these areas be reinforced and what new areas should a leadership profile be sought?
3. What is the role of public policy in putting Europe at the forefront of ICT innovation? How can research policy be consolidated to create a European market for ICT innovation? How can complementary policy fields such as standardisation, licensing and intellectual property regimes be adapted to support the early commercialisation of research results?

The Commission's public consultation document can be found on the IPM (Interactive Policy Making) page of the European Commission.