Beyond Horizon 2020: Translating Public Research into Innovation

About two-thirds of Europe’s economic growth over the last decades has been driven by innovation. The European Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation have played a crucial part in this development. Only a few weeks ago the Commission put forward the proposal for the next Framework Programme “Horizon Europe”, setting very ambitious goals for the European research agenda. Horizon Europe is expected to generate a greater number of new discoveries and technologies, promote scientific excellence, and have positive effects on growth, trade and investment as well as a significant social and environmental impact.

Against this background, our Lunch Debate will focus on the impact of R&I in Europe. We will consider a number of questions: How can we bridge the gap between academia and industry? How can we reduce the divide between European regions, between technological leaders and non-frontier firms? And what are the enabling factors for encouraging the diffusion of innovations?

The empirical basis for the Lunch Debate will be initial findings from the H2020 project FRAME, which aims to develop a toolkit to better assess the economic impact of R&I in Europe. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 727073.