The study being carried out for DG Enterprise of the European Commission is entitled, 'Innovation policy and the regulatory framework. Making innovation an integral part of the broader structural agenda'. The context for the study is DG Enterprise's work to promote a regulatory environment that is conducive to innovation so as to advance the strategy, set out at the Lisbon European Council, to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.

The study deals centrally with the interface of these two areas:

• What implications do the move into a creative knowledge-based society, and its associated changes in innovation processes, have for other policy areas?
• To what extent and how should other policy areas be utilised in order to advance innovation policy in Europe?

The study team :

• Has reviewed issues and practice:
  • Analyse and synthesise current theories of Innovation Policy
  • link policies which establish framework conditions and shape Community Innovation Policy.
• Has established a high level working group in order to:
  • widen the scope of the project’s analysis
  • ensure the input of views from the perspective of the different policy areas that make up the Community regulatory framework
• Has produced and delivered:
  • An initial synthesis/analysis of innovation policy in the knowledge economy
  • Three policy focused interim reports
  • Three stand-alone reports based on case studies : "Policy Overviews" (available for downloading - see left column)
  • A final report, published in December 2002. It is available for downloading on the European Commission Innovation site.

The study focused on 14 regulatory and community policies: 

• EN: Commission issues ‘Innovation Tomorrow’, a key reflection on how to update innovation policy in the context of the Lisbon strategy
• FR: La Commission publie "Innovation Tomorrow", une réflexion majeure sur la mise à jour de la politique de l'innovation dans le contexte de la stratégie de Lisbonne
• DE: Kommission veröffentlicht Studie "Innovation Tomorrow" zur Neugestaltung der Innovationspolitik im Rahmen der Lissabon-Strategie

• Issue n°1 October 2001 - "Taxation and innovation policy"
• Issue n°2 January 2002 - "Macroeconomic condition, growth and employment in the innovation system in Finland"
• Issue n°3 May 2002 - "Entrepreneruship / culture of Innovation, Industry-science relationship and R&D&innovation in Catalonia"

Articles concerning the study in Innovation & Technology Transfer Magazine

• The Finnish example: "Reassessing research funding" - March 2002
• Catalonia Innovation System: "Dispensing with traditional models" - May 2003
• "Revolution in policy-makers' thinking" - January 2003