Digital Innovation

Every year in September, the President of the European Commission delivers a State of the Union Address before the European Parliament, taking stock of achievements of the past year and presenting priorities for the year ahead. The President also sets out how the European Commission will address the most pressing challenges the European Union is facing. The speech is followed by a plenary debate. This kick-starts the dialogue with the European Parliament and the Council to prepare the Commission Work Programme for the following year.
Anchored in the Treaty of Lisbon, the State of the Union Address is set out in the 2010 Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission, which also requires the President to send a Letter of Intent to the President of the European Parliament
and the Presidency of the Council detailing the actions the European Commission intends to take by means of legislation and other initiatives until the end of the following year.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, delivered her third State of the Union Address on 14 September 2022.

In recent years, a growing number of governments have adopted policies aimed at supporting the transition towards a digital economy. The World Trade Report 2020 looks at these policy trends and at how trade and the WTO fit with them.
Trade and trade policies have historically been important engines for innovation. In particular, the multilateral trading system has contributed significantly to the global diffusion of innovation and technology by fostering predictable global market conditions and by underpinning the development of global value chains. As data become an essential input in the digital economy, firms rely more on intangible assets than on physical ones, and digital firms are able to reach global markets faster without the amount of physical investment previously necessary in other sectors. Success in the digital economy will depend on openness, access to information and communication technology (ICT) goods and services, collaboration on research projects, and the diffusion of knowledge and new technology.

Spurred by the splashy emergence of generative artificial intelligence and an array of other AI applications, experts participating in a new Pew Research Center canvassing have great expectations for digital advances across many aspects of life by 2035. They anticipate striking improvements in health care and education. They foresee a world in which wonder drugs are conceived and enabled in digital spaces; where personalized medical care gives patients precisely what they need when they need it; where people wear smart eyewear and earbuds that keep them connected to the people, things and information around them; where AI systems can nudge discourse into productive and fact-based conversations; and where progress will be made in environmental sustainability, climate action and pollution prevention

Addressing the European Commission's report on trends and issues to watch, the EESC stressed that it could have helped much more if it had been involved in the foresight exercise from the start.
The EESC opinion on the 2022 Strategic Foresight Report (SFR), adopted at the March plenary session, stressed that the EESC can strengthen the EU's analysis and foresight capacities. As the eyes and ears of civil society, it is best placed to pinpoint emerging trends. As a demonstration of this, the EESC also volunteered early input to the forthcoming 2023 SFR.
The rapporteur, Angelo Pagliara, set out some of the thinking behind the opinion: "Many of the issues in the Commission's report have already been addressed by the EESC in its opinions in previous years, and we have very strong expertise and experience. So, come to us, involve us more, because we can really help you."
The 2022 SFR looks into how best to align the EU's climate ambitions and its potentially clashing digital goals, and identifies ten key areas where action is needed to maximise synergies and consistency. In this respect, the EESC calls for a strategic foresight agenda geared towards a new development model that combines economic, environmental and social sustainability and puts people at the centre.

This report examines digitalisation’s effects on science, technology and innovation and the associated consequences for policy. In varied and far-reaching ways, digital technologies are changing how scientists work, collaborate and publish. While examining these developments, this book also assesses the effects of digitalisation on longstanding policy themes, from access to publicly funded research data, to the diffusion of technology and its absorption by firms. New and emerging topics are also explored. These include the roles of artificial intelligence and blockchain in science and production, using digital technology to draw on the collective intelligence of the scientific community, advances in the digitalisation of biotechnology, and possible "dark sides" of digitalisation.

This report is the result of a collaboration between members of the World Economic Forum Council on Advanced Manufacturing and Production. It summarizes the main findings of work conducted on the application of advanced manufacturing and digital technologies on future production and supply-chain models. The applications set out in this paper highlight the importance of collaborations across supply-chain partners as crucial to technology adoption and exploitation. Five advanced manufacturing transformations are presented that offer real-world examples of how advanced manufacturing and digital technologies are driving new supply-chain capabilities achieved through supplier-producer-user collaboration. These five transformations, while not aiming to be exhaustive, demonstrate 1) smart manufacturing, 2) flexible supply chains, 3) authentication and consumer engagement, 4) supply chain visibility and resilience, 5) remanufacturing, reduce, reuse and recycling.

In this short presentation, Dr Franck Debié, Director of the Library and the Knowledge services in the European Parliament, Associate Professor of Geopolitics at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris (Paris Sciences et Lettres University), Member of the Steering Committee of the European System for Policy Analysis and Strategy (ESPAS) outlines his view of the key findings of the three ESPAS reports (2012, 2015, 2019) on long-term trends to 2030 for the Ideas Network 2030, an Oxford based network regrouping policy-makers, business actors and researchers. The discussion took place on 14 September 2019. In his conclusions he stressed that: 'the successive ESPAS reports help us to progressively narrow our focus on those issues which will force Europeans to engage in a joint conversation on policy options for the future: the rise of China, climate change, aging and migration, digital disruption, and the growth of nationalism.

The World Development Report (WDR) 2019: The Changing Nature of Work studies how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today. Fears that robots will take away jobs from people have dominated the discussion over the future of work, but the World Development Report 2019 finds that on balance this appears to be unfounded. Work is constantly reshaped by technological progress. Firms adopt new ways of production, markets expand, and societies evolve. Overall, technology brings opportunity, paving the way to create new jobs, increase productivity, and deliver effective public services. Firms can grow rapidly thanks to digital transformation, expanding their boundaries and reshaping traditional production patterns. The rise of the digital platform firm means that technological effects reach more people faster than ever before. Technology is changing the skills that employers seek. Workers need to be better at complex problem-solving, teamwork and adaptability. Digital technology is also changing how people work and the terms on which they work. Even in advanced economies, short-term work, often found through online platforms, is posing similar challenges to those faced by the world’s informal workers. The Report analyzes these changes and considers how governments can best respond. Investing in human capital must be a priority for governments in order for workers to build the skills in demand in the labor market. In addition, governments need to enhance social protection and extend it to all people in society, irrespective of the terms on which they work. To fund these investments in human capital and social protection, the Report offers some suggestions as to how governments can mobilize additional revenues by increasing the tax base.