The Euro-CASE Innovation Platform brings together European academies of engineering to examine the barriers in national innovation systems that prevent innovative SMEs in Europe from scaling up. Its analysis combined a generic review with sector 'deep dives', and the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain (RAI) led the deep dive on industrialisation. The deep-dive workshop took place in Madrid on 30–31 January 2017, chaired by José Manuel Sanjurjo (RAI), and preparatory foresight was coordinated by Totti Könnölä and Francisco J. Jariego from Insight Foresight Instute.
Building on a background discussion paper and the results of the Euro-CASE survey, the workshop explored industrial innovation towards 2030 through industrial platform ecosystems: value networks that engage industrial providers and customers as well as research and technology organisations, universities, start-ups and other SMEs, investors, public agencies and regulators. Particular attention was paid to the future role of SMEs and the barriers they face in scaling up, and participants drew recommendations to inform European policy-making.
The findings fed into the platform report Barriers to Innovation and Scale-up of Innovative SMEs (Euro-CASE, 2017). Its industrialisation analysis stresses that keeping an advanced production base competitive remains a high priority; that jobs will shift from the physical towards cyber and convergence domains; that much of SMEs' existing software and hardware may become obsolete; and that policy should foster broad collaboration across incumbents and newcomers, sectors and public and private actors, much of it organised around digital platforms, with a focus on transformation rather than on correcting market failures alone.
References
Euro-CASE. (2017). Barriers to innovation and scale-up of innovative SMEs (Euro-CASE Innovation Platform report). https://www.euro-case.org/wp-content/uploads/Eurocase/Publications/PDF/Euro-CASE_Innovation-Platform-II-Report.pdf
Euro-CASE. (n.d.). Euro-CASE platforms: Innovation. https://www.euro-case.org/?p=35001
Insight Foresight Instit ute. (2017, March 31). SMEs, innovation and industrialisation for Europe 2030. https://if-institute.org/smes-innovation-and-industrialisation-for-europe-2030
