On 22 December 2022, the Council of the EU adopted a Recommendation on the guiding principles for knowledge valorisation. The purpose of the Recommendation is to establish a unified approach to policy principles and measures for national, regional, and local policymakers, with the goal of optimizing the translation of research and innovation outcomes into solutions that have a positive impact on society. The Recommendation was enacted on 1st March 2023 to reinforce the implementation of the guiding principles in knowledge valorisation. A Code of Practice on intellectual assets management and a Code of Practice on standardization were adopted. These codes provide comprehensive guidance on managing intellectual assets and standardisation, respectively, offering more detailed support in these areas of knowledge valorisation.
To engage stakeholders and Member States in the implementation of the recommendations, the European Commission launched an Awareness raising campaign on knowledge valorisation in March 2023, which received much commitment from Member States for hosting national awareness raising events. In addition, the campaign also includes stakeholder events organised by the European Commission. In parallel, a Mutual Learning Exercise on knowledge valorisation was launched in March 2023 with the aim of defining concrete operational recommendations and delivering a policy toolbox identifying best practices and strategies, helping to implement the guiding principles in the Member States.
In addition, a Coordination and Support Action on fostering knowledge valorisation through societal and cultural interactions is funded by the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. It aims to enhance collaboration between arts, citizens, and industry to foster innovative, socially accepted solutions to societal challenges, while engaging diverse communities and enhancing skill development for a prepared, recoverable, and transition-ready society .
The EU Knowledge Valorisation Platform facilitates the exchange of good practices on knowledge valorisation to enhance the capacities and skills of stakeholders at all levels in line with the EU guidance developed under Action 7. The registry of good practices, which is filled by Member States and stakeholders themselves, counts more than 100 examples from across Europe and covering all knowledge valorisation channels.
The EU Knowledge Valorisation Week is a yearly event that brings together knowledge valorisation actors across Europe. It provides a unique occasion for studying and learning from excellent examples, discussing current trends and challenges in valorisation, and highlighting opportunities with a wide range of stakeholders. The 2023 edition of the Week (25-28 April 2023) focused on knowledge valorisation for sustainability, management of intellectual assets and industry-academia cooperation. Two communities of practice were launched in March 2023 to develop further guidance for R&I actors in the field of industry-academia collaboration and citizen engagement for knowledge valorisation.
The EU has implemented a range of actions to promote knowledge valorisation and bridge the gap between research and practical applications. These actions include - among other initiatives- the contractual public-private partnerships (cPPPs) that aim to align public and private investments to expedite the translation of research findings from the laboratory to market-ready products and solutions, and the European Innovation Council schemes that support game changing innovations throughout the lifecycle from early-stage research to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale up of start-ups and SMEs.
To support the early-stage development of research outputs, the European Research Council (ERC) offers the Proof of Concept (ERC-POC) program. The ERC-POC program provides funding to cover activities that bridge the gap between research discoveries and the commercial or social viability of propositions. By nurturing promising research outcomes, the program enhances the potential for economic and societal impact.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) act as enablers for innovation, notably by attracting, training and retaining the research human capital that would drive innovation forward. With its emphasis on transferable skills training, inter-sectoral inter-disciplinary collaborations and promotion of innovative and entrepreneurial mind-sets, the programme nurtures the innovative potential of researchers in the EU innovation landscape.
In addition to these initiatives, the EU established EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) that bring together businesses, research centres, and universities. Furthermore, the Standardisation Booster was established with funding from Horizon Europe, to assist researchers in testing the relevance of their results for standardization.
Other initiatives include the European IPR Helpdesk, which supports SMEs and research activities in managing and valorising intellectual property rights, and the IP Booster, a specialised service assisting public research organizations in extracting value from their research results. To enhance knowledge dissemination, the Horizon Results Platform serves as a central hub for showcasing the outcomes of Horizon 2020 projects, enabling stakeholders to connect with innovators and industry players.
With respect to budget the 2023 OECD STIP Survey shows (see Figure 19) that the funds allocated to policies strengthening the ERA Action 7 tend to fall under the medium budget ranges (less than EUR 1M, between EUR 1 and 5M and between EUR 5 and 20M), with fewer policies receiving high volume of fundings (between EUR 100M and EUR 500M and over EUR 500M). Examples of governance initiatives with budgets of more than EUR 500 million include the National Strategy for Research, Innovation and Smart Specialisation 2022-2027 in Romania and the Enterprise Policy - "To The Top" in the Netherlands. An example of a direct financial support instrument within the highest budget range includes the Programme of Revitalisation and Training on Processes of Exchange and Knowledge Transfer funded by the Spanish National Research Council.
With respect to the types of policy instruments being employed to push forward the objective of Action 7, direct financial support is the most used instrument. This financial support includes project grants, institutional funding for public research, credits, or loans for firms. The second two most used instruments are governance and guidance, regulation, and incentives. Governance entails instruments such as strategies, action plans, reform of governance structure or public awareness campaigns. Guidance, regulation, and incentives constitute instruments that ease business procedures, public practices and legislations, cross-border funding and adaptation of intellectual property.
Figure 19: Action 7: Distribution of budget per policy instrument