Europe to become a "True Innovation Union"

The European Commission has released the first comprehensive innovation strategy for the European Union. The strategy has over thirty action points including the development of European Innovation Partnerships, improving access to finance, creating a major research program on the public sector & social innovation and modernizing Europe's intellectual property rights regime. European Innovation Partnerships would step up R&D, coordinate investments, speed up standards and mobilize stakeholders in areas that tackle major challenges faced by the EU to become a world leader in innovation. Proposed projects include public health, energy, "smart" cities and mobility, water efficiency, non-energy raw materials and sustainable & productive agriculture. Under this strategy, the EU wants to achieve investments in R&D totaling 3% of the EU's GDP by 2020. If this goal is achieved, the European Commission projects 3.7 million jobs would be created and annual GDP would increase by €795 billion ($1.1 trillion) by 2025. Read the release ...