How close is Europe to the Inno­va­tion Union and how the pri­vate sec­tor take the lead in inno­va­tion were just some of the top­ics of live­ly debate dur­ing the third edi­tion of the Euro­pe­an Inno­va­tion Sum­mit in Brus­sels, mot­toed "Towards a Euro­pe­an Inno­va­tion Eco­sys­tem." It was orga­nized by the think-tank Knowl­edge4Inno­va­tion and wide­ly sup­port­ed by the EP and per­son­al­ly by its Pres­i­dent Jer­zy Buz­ek. Among the pan­el­ists in the dif­fer­ent ses­sions were the MEPs Lam­bert van Nist­el­roo­ij, Anto­nio Cor­re­ia de Cam­pos, Edith Herc­zog, and also Die­go Can­ga Fano, Dep­u­ty Head of Cab­i­net of the EC Vice-Pres­i­dent Anto­nio Tajani, Thom­as J. White, Dep­u­ty Chief of the US Mis­sion to the EU, Mikael Hag­strom, Chair­man of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of AmCham EU, Jos Leij­ten and Ronald Strauss, respec­tive­ly Pres­i­dent and Man­a­ging Direct­or of Knowl­edge4Inno­va­tion, and prom­i­nent busi­ness rep­re­sent­a­tives. Par­al­lel meet­ing on inno­va­tion at min­is­te­ri­al lev­el took place in War­saw and was one of the key events of the Pol­ish Pres­i­den­cy. Its focus was on adapt­ing EU research and inno­va­tion pol­i­cies to nation­al and region­al con­texts.

In Brus­sels, where the busi­ness peo­ple met the pol­i­cy mak­ers, appeared a new dimen­sion in inno­va­tion - across regions and sec­tors. Still more clear­ly emerged a bold new atti­tude towards risk tak­ing and fail­ure, which often holds back the entre­pre­neurs from the imple­men­ta­tion of new brave ideas.

Search­ing for new mod­els how Europe can improve its com­pet­i­tive­ness and eco­nom­ic growth, the par­tic­i­pants shared the opin­ion that pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ships are cru­cial­ly impor­tant for imple­men­ta­tion of major pro­jects. This part­ner­ship will encour­age pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment in research and inno­va­tion, they say. Euro­pe­an Com­mis­sion pre­pares a wide range of finan­cial instru­ments for research, inno­va­tion and sci­ence, includ­ing the new Frame­work Pro­gramme Hori­zon 2020 and the Struc­tur­al Funds in the next finan­cial peri­od aft­er 2013.

Spe­cial place in the dis­cus­sion was devot­ed to the top­ic of trans­at­lan­tic inno­va­tion coop­er­a­tion in a glo­bal­ised world. AmCham EU, the trade asso­ci­a­tion of 150 US com­pa­nies was pre­sent­ed also at the accom­pa­ny­ing exhi­bi­tion. "These US com­pa­nies have a very strong pres­ence in Europe, they pro­duce pro­ducts and serv­i­ces in Europe and cre­ate jobs for Euro­pe­ans," said Maire­ad Aud­oun­et of AmCham EU. At anoth­er booth, EURE­KA, the inno­va­tion incu­ba­tor of Europe, pre­sents a series of pro­grammes under which Mem­ber States work togeth­er. Acqueau is unique EURE­KA clus­ter for growth and inno­va­tion in water. It is sup­port­ed by the nation­al gov­ern­ments of 20 coun­tries and by 40 indus­tries in Europe. Its ulti­mate goal is to strength­en the tech­no­log­i­cal base of the Euro­pe­an water sec­tor, includ­ing the intro­duc­tion of dis­in­fec­tion tech­nol­o­gies to ensure drink­ing and bath­ing water safe­ty and intro­duc­tion of new envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly pipe mate­ri­als for water deliv­ery.