When will alpha and omega collide? In search of the theoretical relevance of EU innovation policies

Abstract

Innovation has been really become a buzzword in recent decades both in the scientific and the political community. It is regarded as a primary driver of social and economic development. However, the EU’s innovation performance hasn’t improved significantly in the past 15 years, despite the remarkable political effort to boost it. In this paper, by a thorough analysis of the most relevant EU policy documents from 1995 to 2014, the authors examined the evolution of the European innovation policies and compared it with the evolution of innovation studies. They found that just as Europe is lagging behind its most important competitors in terms of economic performance, so does the innovation policy lag behind the current state of the art of innovation research. This poses significant problems if we are to fully exploit the social and economic potential of innovation activities. They argue that a broader operational concept of innovation could make innovation policies more inclusive and thus both the capacities and the gains of innovation could be more effectively developed. However, this can only be achieved through closer cooperation and interactions between the scientific community and those actively involved in different stages of policy making processes. This would be even more beneficial in the eve of digitalisation, automation and robotisation when the new technologies are near to being fully integrated into diverse economic activities, if we are to minimise the social risks and maximise the economic gains associated with the 4th industrial revolution.