The Helsinki Manifesto

The conference "Networked Business and Government", attended by over 300 research, technology and innovation policy specialists from the EU countries, worried about the status of the implementation Lisbon Strategy, gave out a "Helsinki Manifesto". They say that "in order to improve its global competitive position, Europe needs immediate and strong measures to boost its economic growth through productivity and innovation for job creation in 2007-2013. There is also a nurgent need for institutional, structural and financial changes at Eu, national and regional level to facilitate focused and  innovation-based growth for Europe's global competitiveness". For the implementation of this Manifesto, the actors gathered in Helsinki for the two-day conference have recognized the following priorities:

1. Opening EU-wide procurement of R&D innovation within public services

In Europe the public sector is relativelt bigger than in the U.S. or in Asia. Thus, "the public sector should use its procurement power to leverage innovation and drive the take-up of research into innovative products and services". According to the group, this would require a reallocation of about 2.5 % of the public procurement spending to R&D for innovation.

2. Creation of EU-wide standardized and harmonized banking services

While workable technologies and business models already exist, and despite the statements of the European Commission and the European central Bank of May 2006, there's still big productivity gains to be had from enhanced EU-wide standardization and harmonization in the areas of new better business processes, electronic banking, and financial market operations within the Europe.

3. European network of Living Labs

Living Labs are thought to act as test beds for emerging knowledge intensive services, businesses, markets, technologies or even industries for jobs and growth can be developed, tested and validated. The first phase - already under planning - will consist of 20 such "labs" in 15 member countries.

4. Increasing interoperability and creating EU-wide standards for eServices

The conference also noted that it is "vital to implement existing best practices for public services and SMEs." As an example, the conference noted the authentication services used in banking in Finland and Estonia, and also promoted the possibilities the open standards would offer for innovation.

5. Setting up a strategic task force for the presidencies 2007-2008

The German, Portuguese and Slovenian presidencies would have to promote the innovativeness of Europe even further during their time in the lead. In the Helsinki meeting, a strong-attendance Slovenian team at least gave full support to this idea.

6. A horizontal programme within the 7th framework programme for knowledge-intensive service society development

While the conference agreed that the 7th framework in general was "a move to the right direction", they also felt that a horizontal research programme for knowledge intensive society development would be in order. This programme should cover "the required services, business, and related open technological architecture development, and consequent institutional and structural changes" and be ready for implementation from early 2008.

7. Enabling working environment

The Conference finally stated that the "member states should accelerate their efforts to remove the still-remaining barriers and obstacles" for the ICT uptake across Europe, whether of legal, administrative, economic, or technical nature.

Even if all these objectives in general feel and sound like I couldn't agree more, they also leave a lot of practical value unsaid. I, for one, still do not really see what new value for competitiveness of Europe the Living Labs would provide, nor how (see www.tietoyhteiskuntaohjelma.fi/ajankohtaista/events/en_GB/1147340579176/   for details), and also most of the other points in the Manifesto feel like I would have heard them before. Thus, personally, I agree that the major point here must be point number five: if Europe can get four or five consecutive presidencies to keep the innovativeness item on top of all possible issues they want to be forwarded, then there's still hope. And, as a final point of lighter nature (but, to my opinion, also somewhat telling about the situation of innovation in Europe), a joke I overheard: "What's the definition of 'innovation'? Why, it's 'lnvention' after administration has taken over". Too many organizations and policies, and not enough ideas.

(Press conference in Espoo, 20.11.2006)