Tal
Bryssel 6 februari 2009
Lars Leijonborg, Högskole- och forskningsminister

Tal vid European University / Business Forum

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Gospel of Innovation has been proclaimed at this conference. I happen to be a believer, but when a new message is spread over the world like a religion there is a risk of obsession. Therefore I want to go back one step and start with the basic questions, Why innovation? Why "Innovative Sweden"? and why "Innovative Europe"?
Let me give my answer in three parts:

First. We need innovations to meet the challenges of our time. Without new scientific breakthroughs, applied research and corporate development, meeting the climate challenge, the poverty challenge, the security challenge and several others challenges will be extremely hard. Let me quote Bill Gates: Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in such a short a time. The Swedish government presented an ambitious package on climate and energy yesterday and very large investments in research is a cornerstone of that policy.

Second. It's simply more fun to live in an innovative society than in a stagnant one. I admit that at my age you sometimes prefer your old mobile phone before a new one, with functions you never asked for. But the overall feeling is that a life where you have good reasons to believe that tomorrow will be better than today, is a more inspiring and exciting one than a static one. Some innovations, for example in the financial market, have been less successful in recent years, but I am deeply convinced the alternative - that is a non-innovative or an anti-innovative society - would be much, much worse and create even bigger problems.

Third. We need innovations to be competitive. If we want to remain a continent with high wages and advanced welfare arrangements we need to be at the top end of the value chain. And the difference between the ends of that chain is the degree of innovation and creativity.
OK, so we need it, but how do we get it?

A starting point is the free academia and a lot of basic research. I presented a Research Bill to the Swedish parliament for the coming four years in October. It contained a substantial increase of R&D funding. Like all others we define "strategic areas" and fine-tune our innovation systems, but I am proud to say that the free, curiosity driven, basic research was the real winner in it. If we only conduct applied research we will soon find ourselves in the position where there is no research to apply!

We can praise close cooperation between business and academia, and I often do, but a university may never be the Development department of a private company. The tobacco industry should not be the main supporter of research about health problems with smoking. I am a great fan of joint projects and corporate funding of university research, but there is a limit. A free academy must have the guts and resources to ask impolite and uncomfortable questions, and to start projects that challenge both their corporate partners and the rest of society. The academic integrity is an indispensable asset.

Humanities and social sciences have an important role to play as well when we build our societies of tomorrow. We often forget that there is a lot of evidence to support the fact that even from a highly commercial and competitive perspective, these "soft" sciences are crucial.
To mismanage research and education policy in our time would be a historical mistake. At this juncture in history, in the midst of a financial crisis, we must remain far-sighted. We must rise above nationalism and protectionism.

All of us, our finance ministers, our governments, our parliaments and our voters must be aware of this fact: in today's world knowledge is the most important factor of production. Investments in better schools, more quality in higher education and more research pay off. OECD-statistics indicate that more than half of the economic growth in modern times can be attributed to new technology and other innovations.

Low price competition can not be the headway for Europe. In India they now produce a car which is sold for around 2000 euro. Our ability for sustained innovation is the one competitive edge Europe has left. We need not fear the cost-cutters if we have confidence in our systems for sustained innovation.

And don't think about waiting until we se a recovery in the economy. The right time to start is now.
Remember this: Winners in the corporate sector often emerge out of recessions. Let me give you two American examples. Apple worked on iTunes and the iPod during the last recession and came out winners once growth returned. The year 2001, when the dot com bubble burst, was the year when Google made their breakthrough: as companies started to measure what really paid off online, they realized they should stick with, and increase, Google advertising.
I mentioned my Research Bill. In Sweden such bills are presented every four years. They are usually called just the research bill. This time however, we decided to call it the Research and Innovation bill. We propose several reforms in order to sharpen our innovation system. In parallel the government has made reforms in the taxation system to create a better climate for entrepreneurship. This is important: the gap between academia and business can never be narrowed only by changes on the university side.

We are now changing the university law to make it clear that the universities bear responsibility for establishing good and fruitful relations with the surrounding society. A very important part of that society is private business.
We will also introduce what we call "innovation offices" at seven universities around the country. And we will make available more seed capital for academic innovation.
A lot of European countries, Sweden being one of them, have difficulties attracting young people to technology programmes and natural sciences. One way in which we are dealing with this problem is by launching a campaign to inform young people about what the engineering professions have to offer. I have been informed that there is a discussion about a European forum for exchanging experiences on how to increase the interest in science and technology. I believe this is a good initiative and Sweden supports it fully.

Let me end by saying a few words about the intentions of the incoming Swedish Presidency. In the last few months, the financial crisis and the start of a global recession has underlined the urgent need for renewed and forceful action towards a more competitive union.

This is the reason why I feel we, the member states, should act with bigger determination and raise our level of ambition. Not having reached the goals stated in the Lisbon strategy is a big disappointment. Perhaps it's time to think in new, bold ways. Of course every member state should try to increase the investments in research and innovation, but in my vision for ERA the EU has reviewed it's priorities in the budget - Sweden calls for a shift in the budget from the past to the future. And for the future R&D subsidies give more added value than agricultural subsidies.

Sweden is a strong supporter of the so called Ljubljana process, which aims at making the European Research Area a reality. We also welcome the new strategic framework in the field of education, which is under way. Given this background it is our intention to give high priority to the knowledge triangle during the Swedish Presidency. A high level meeting and a number of other events on this theme are being planned. We will also propose a set of guidelines for adoption by the Council of Ministers in November.

We need more research, we need more cooperation between European researchers, we need more cooperation between industry and academia, and we need better ways to commercialize scientific break-troughs in Europe. The vision called European Research Area can help us reach these goals. But a key factor is how the decisions needed are made. The governance of ERA will remain a key issue for the Swedish presidency.

For me the letters ERA not only stand for a research area but for the vision of a new era for Europe, an era of knowledge driven growth, an era of seized opportunities in times of globalisation. I'm sure this conference will take us closer to that vision! Thank you for your attention!