Brussels, 01/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 29 February, the European Commission set out measures it says will be key to meeting three major challenges facing European society in areas like growth and employment - namely, supply of raw materials, sustainable agriculture and healthy ageing. All three areas will require greater innovation from both the public and private sector in order to improve the quality of life and give Europe a leading role in the world.
The Commission has launched European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) for raw materials (EUROPE will be returning to this) and agricultural productivity. It has approved a four-year action plan for a pilot EIP on healthy ageing. Each of the three EIPs has an ambitious target to reach by 2020 and is expected to generate results within three years. The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said: “We need to innovate to get Europe back on the path to growth and jobs, and to tackle major challenges such as access to raw materials, sustainable agriculture and our ageing society. European Innovation Partnerships will break down barriers, remove bottlenecks and focus our efforts on results that matter to our citizens and our businesses.” The EIPs are part of the flagship “Innovation Union” programme as part of the EUROPE 2020 strategy.
The EIP in agriculture has two main aims - promoting productivity and efficiency in farming (reversing the recent trend of lower productivity by 2020) and sustainable development (ensuring satisfactory returns from the earth by 2020).
For the healthy ageing EIP, the Commission has published an initial call for tender for special innovative action in this domain and will be setting up later this year an innovative ideas market. The Commission wants to raise regulatory and standardisation questions, supporting the introduction of a new EU labelling system, for example, and certificates for online healthcare. (LC/transl.fl)