Innovation

For this project, disruptive emergencies are defined as unplanned and non-routine events that have a significant consequence or impact on people, property and infrastructure, or could seriously damage the security of the EU. The impacts include harm to people (including psychological impacts), short or long term economic damage, and physical damage to property and the environment. Disruptive emergencies have been classified as either:
- Hazards - the results of nature or technical failure, including human error; or
- Threats - the results of terrorist or criminal activity (including state sponsored)
Disruptive emergencies do not include everyday occurrences, such as street crime.
The scope of the project includes emergencies that occur either within the EU (or are covered by the EU Civil Protection mechanism, such as the forest fires in 2007), or events outside the EU, that have a major impact within the EU, such as the potential break down of the energy system due to the decision to close nuclear plants as a result of Fukushima.
In undertaking this project I drew on my experience of undertaking FLA in the UK government and as a consultant; and experience of work on the preparedness for and resilience towards disruptive emergencies. This includes work on disruptive emergencies as part of the UK National Security programme (CONTEST) and the associated National Risk Register. I conducted desk research and interviewed a number of experts on the subject. I also took account of comments made following a presentation to the EFFLA Committee at the commencement of the project.
This report neither covers the provision of humanitarian assistance by the EU after emergencies; nor an assessment of future risks or an audit of the capability of DG Research and Innovation to respond to them.
There is lot of activity by Member States and the European Commission directed towards the anticipation of, preparedness for, response to and recovering from disruptive emergencies. The recommendations cover areas where DG Research and Innovation can contribute to these activities.

The first challenge to be addressed within the current design of H2020 is how to network more closely the three analytical dimensions chosen – inclusion, security, innovations – and clarify better the different perspectives and possible readings ascribed to each of the dimensions. As an example, inclusion related to migrations don’t have just to do with people coming to Europe but also with Europeans leaving Europe, security is not just related to preventing something bad from happening it also deals with what might destroy positive dimensions like freedom of speech and privacy. When analysing the H2020 point 6 on “Inclusion, Innovation and Security” one-dimensional perspectives are much more present than multi-dimensional ones and each of the three areas is very much thought as non-networkable with the other two. Such a choice in the design of the H2020 proposal constitutes a general challenge because it might limit the possible contributions by research in social-economic sciences and humanities to the proposed objectives.

Since the launch of the Lisbon strategy in 2000, innovation has been regarded by EU policy-makers as key to long-term growth and a number of initiatives have been developed over the past decade. In light of profound social and economic shifts that have taken place in the meantime, however, it is now time to take a fresh look at a dynamic and renewed policy to drive innovation. This report, undertaken jointly with Ernst and Young, focuses on EU innovation initiatives and identifies changes that would lead to more responsive and dynamic innovation policy. The report asks what would such a policy look like and what needs to be changed for policy to be more effective and create growth.