Today, the Commission adopted a New European Innovation Agenda to position Europe at the forefront of the new wave of deep tech innovation and start-ups. It will help Europe to develop new technologies to address the most pressing societal challenges, and to bring them on the market.

By leading on innovation, in particular on the new wave of deep-tech innovation requiring breakthrough R&D and large capital investment, Europe will reinforce its central role in shaping the green and digital transitions. Deep tech innovation will reinforce Europe's technological leadership and generate innovative solutions to pressing societal challenges, such as climate change and cyberthreats.

Building on Europeans' entrepreneurial mindset, scientific excellence, the strength of the single market and democratic societies, the New Innovation Agenda will in particular:

• Improve access to finance for European start-ups and scale-ups;
• Improve the conditions to allow innovators to experiment with new ideas through regulatory sandboxes;
• Help create  “regional innovation valleys” that will strengthen and better connect innovation players through Europe;
•  Attract and retain talent in Europe;
• Improve the policy framework through clearer terminology, indicators and data sets, as well as policy support to Member States.

The New European Innovation Agenda sets out 25 dedicated actions under five flagships:

• Funding Scale-Ups
• Enabling innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement
• Accelerating and strengthening innovation in European Innovation Ecosystems across the EU
• Fostering, attracting and retaining deep tech talents
• Improving policy making tools

Building on the substantive work that have been done already to foster innovation in the EU, the New European Innovation Agenda aims to accelerate the development and scaling up of innovation across the Union through a coherent set of actions.

Image © European Commission