L’Europe a besoin de nous tous pour écrire son avenir.

The Key Enabling Technologies and their use in the European core industries

First session of the Preparatory Seminar :

"Jobs, Competitivness and Industrial Imperative"

ON 8 march 2012

from 9:30 to 12 :00

At the Délégation Générale de la Région Rhône-Alpes
62, rue du Trône (metro Trône) B-1050 Brussels

Applications of Key Enabling Technologies 

to boost the European industrial competitiveness

Claude FISCHER and Philippe HERZOG will introduce this seminar

With the participation of:

Michel CATINAT, NTIC head of unit for Competitiveness and industrial Innovation, DG Industry, European Commission

Gernot KLOTZ, Research and Innovation director at CEFIC (European Chemical Industry Council)

Patrizia TOIA*, Vice-president of the ITRE committee, European Parliament

Gabriel CREAN, Scientific Director of CEA

* Upon availability

See the report of the High-Level Expert Group on Key Enabling Technologies :

Debates were simultaneously translated into French and English.

Dedicated to preparing the 2012 European Economic Debates, the cycle of seminars will be held all year round in cooperation with our partners and our network of companies and territories.

CONTACT/REGISTRATION:
Mathieu Moreau, Bureau de Bruxelles
Tel : +32 2 213 62 73 / This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In 2012, in a context of austerity and slow growth, EU member states will have to revamp their growth and competitiveness strategy. In this gloomy economic outlook, some technologies of the future, say « key enabling technologies », might push up the growth of tomorrow.

The European Commission has identified several technologies of the future on which Europe should capitalize: nanotechnologies, microelectronics, photonics, advanced materials and biotechnologies. Applications emanating from these technologies will strengthen the competitiveness of European industries, by catalyzing strategic sectors innovation and creating new products on world markets.

Developing these key enabling technologies underlies the shift to a knowledge-based economy, and constitutes a systemic interest for the whole European economy. Indeed, thanks to their multiple application fields, they will allow to improve EU’s competitiveness while responding to new emerging challenges in numerous fields, including environment and health.

The chemical industry is part of these strategic sectors on which Europe can count to preserve its competitiveness and guarantee the well-being of its inhabitants. Through its applications in environment, health, and medicines, the chemical industry may constitute a real European Public Good.

However, despite its assets, the EU suffers from numerous hurdles. Developing key enabling technologies and European Public Goods requires us to revise our research and innovation models. These technologies request intense research and development, quick innovation cycles, high spending and a qualified workforce. These transformations imply a modernization of the European industrial basis.

Firstly, research efforts in Europe are dispersed and fragmented among States and among the different players (universities, research centers, companies, States…). The European Commission favors a strong coordination among all stakeholders, to ensure a better concentration of resources and projects coherence: which public policies are required in order to create synergies among research centers, universities, and SMEs? How to promote the links between industrialists and scientific communities? How to finance the new training needs, emanating from the transversal characteristics of key enabling technologies? 

Secondly, the European Union doesn’t know how to fully capitalize on its know-how in this sector and how to offer outlets in manufacturing. Indeed, it faces challenges in marketing its innovations through manufactured goods or services. In its final report dated June 2011, the high-level group on key enabling technologies (headed by Jean Therme, director of the CEA of Grenoble), attempts to respond to these weaknesses. It recommends focusing on three pillars of the innovation chain: fundamental research, applied research, and the production process. The report insists on the need to develop a real policy at the European level on key enabling technologies.

Coordinating the European, national, and local levels seems necessary: how to implement it? Should we associate more strongly public and private players and if so how? How to ensure an efficient financing among the different stakeholders? Lastly, transversal techniques imply transversal knowledge: how to adapt the professional training and university curriculums to these new challenges?

The European Union will have to anticipate the industrial mutations of tomorrow. For instance, biotechnologies constitute a new area of application for the booming chemical industry (green biotechnologies in the agricultural sector, red ones in the health sector, and white ones in industry). In this sector, biochemical products will represent in 2015 (in relative value) between 12 and 20% of total chemical production. A recent report of the World Economic Forum (2010, The Future of Industrial Biorefineries) estimates that the conversion of biomass into fuel, energy, and chemical products could generate a world market exceeding $230b, by 2020.