innovation policy

The Portuguese Council of Ministers has approved the “Zero Fees For Innovation” decree (Taxa Zero para Inovação) in March 2011. The government wants to reward SMEs which undertake innovation efforts by reducing administrative fees for them for a period of two years.  

The forest industry has been the traditional backbone of the Finnish economy. To explore opportunities for innovation and growth in this industry, Finland launched in 2007 the “Provisions for Growth” research programme. It explored the conditions for growth and productivity in the forest-based industries, focusing on small and medium-sized companies. The programme was mainly financed my Metsämiesten Säätiö, a foundation focusing on the forest industry (http://www.mmsaatio.fi). It was completed in 2010. The final report summarises the activities, lessons learned and conclusions for industrial policy.

Malta officially became a member of the “Eurostars” programme, a pan-European initiative spread across 33 countries aimed at stimulating companies leading to an international collaborative research project. With a fund of €400 million, contributed by the participating states and the European Union, the Eurostars initiative brings together companies from different countries to work on market-driven research projects.

CANARIE has launched DAIR, the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research Programme. The intent of the programme is to provide shared infrastructure in order to make both research projects as well as new product development by small and medium enterprises more efficient. 

In 2009, a governmental White Paper addressed the need for increased service innovations in Norway. As a result, the Ministry of Trade and Industry established a forum aimed at reviewing and giving recommendations on how current innovation policy could be adapted to foster such service innovations. The forum included representatives from a wide range of players in the Norwegian innovation system including governmental bodies, academics, businesses, labour unions and sectoral federations. The report resulting from the forum's discussion highlights several measures needed in order to prompt service innovation.

File Attachment: 

Norwegian Innovation Report (2010). [Leo A. Grünfeld, Markus Bugge, Aris Kaloudis (2010): Innovasjon i tjenester. En empirisk analyse av tjenesteinnovasjon i norsk næringsliv og innovasjonspolitikkens utfordringer. MENON-publikasjon nr. 12/2010, Juli 2010]

On 10 February 2011, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy announced the launch of the “R&D Dashboard”, an online database that helps users document and demonstrate the impacts of Federal investments in research and development (R&D).

Romania has decided to invest in the European project of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) about 289 million euros for the next six years. The financial resources will be mainly attracted from the structural funds that Romania receives in the period 2007-2013, as part of the Cohesion Policy. Romania will cooperate with the Czech Republic and Hungary for this project, as each country will build a pillar of the big European infrastructure project of extreme light, aiming to develop the most powerful laser, ever. The Czech Republic will contribute 260 million and Hungary 189 million euros.