Political representatives, academics and members of the business community will debate on innovation, with emphasis on the European Innovation Plan. The conference, jointly organised between the Spanish ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Commision, will be an opportunity to exchange views on the way forward in the field of innovation.

A framework for action is needed to unlock Europe’s innovation potential, in which all the elements are connected and work towards the same objective. An effective way of organising policy intervention consists in conceptualising a “pentagon of innovation”, the five axes of which are:

• Financing
• Markets
• Regions
• People
• Governance

The “European Challenges for Innovation” conference, jointly organised between the Spanish ministry of Science and Innovation and the European Commision, will be an opportunity to exchange views on the way forward, organising the debate alongside the axis of the innovation pentagon and through examples of good practice across the EU.

The event will take place in 27th and 28th April 2010 in Bilbao (Spain) at the Euskalduna Conference Center, and it will be composed of four sessions. Four plenary sessions for debate following the axes of the “European pentagon of innovation” including cases of good practices will be presented in each session, followed by a discussion open to all participants.

Session 1. Stimulating innovation through public procurement

A commitment must be made to those markets in which the public sector plays a key role and therefore has R&D&I instruments at its disposal, not only by means of a budget, which is always insufficient, but also by using its regulatory power and driving forward R&D through innovative public procurement.

Session 2. Financing Innovation

A favourable financial setting is crucial for developing an innovation policy, and this means financing must be allowed to flow in multiple directions within innovative activities. The innovation process must be supported at various stages, starting from basic research right through to financing to help innovative companies grow and expand.

Session 3. Innovation in regions

Innovation is a policy that must be put into action at all geographic levels of the European Union, from Community to national level, with the role of national governments being crucial, precisely because of their proximity to the users. For this reason, Community innovation policy must be perfectly coordinated with that of the various Member States.

Europe must create a large internal market to which its innovative companies have easy access, allowing them to grow rapidly and serving as a base for them to take on the global market.

Session 4. Empowering people for innovation

Europe is seeing its competitiveness position eroded in in several sectors (especially in the traditional ones), due to stiff competition from Asian countries. The only way of resolving this present and future situation is to make a firm commitment to added value and innovation. This commitment must come particularly from the private sector, and the main instrument for this is companies’ workforces. People are the cornerstone of any company or institution. In order to innovative, in the broadest sense, an organisation must have human resources with the appropriate skills.