International konference om service innovation

Dear EPISIS-partners, EUROPE INNOVA partners, representatives of the European Commission, expert panel members. Ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to you all.

The European Commission has estimated that if recent trends continue, by 2025 the United States and Europe will have lost their scientific and technological supremacy for the benefit of Asia.

China and India will thus account for approximately 20 percent of the world's research and development – more than the double of their current share.

Recently, I visited China to sign a formal agreement on a new Danish-Chinese University Centre in Beijing. One thing is to hear about China's knowledge based revolution, another thing is to see it.

China is rapidly transforming from being the world's factory to one of the world's leading nations within research and education. Let me mention just one example: China every year educates around two million engineers. An absolutely impressive amount.

Europe faces not only recovery from the economic crisis, but also major global competition on knowledge, education and innovation. To face these challenges, we need to build a more dynamic and a more competitive Europe. A Europe geared for future thinking. A Europe capable of rethinking conventional wisdom. In my opinion service innovation is the key to future growth and employment in Europe.

Services innovation – great potentials

Roughly 70 percent of the total employment in Europe is related to services and around 72 percent of the gross value added generated by the EU Member States stems from the service sector. Service innovation therefore plays an increasingly important role in the European economy.

Not only is service innovation a key source of job creation. Service innovation also has significant potential to help us address the major societal challenges ahead of us, such as an ageing population, health, environment and climate change.

Let me provide an example. Around the world there is a growing demand for renewable energy and clean tech solutions. Obviously, development and export of new clean tech technologies will help increase future growth and welfare in Europe.

One matter is to develop these technologies. Another is to bring them into actual use in households and businesses – and to do this wisely.   

For instance, intelligent distribution of energy – through so called smart grids – enables more efficient use of renewable energy. In this case service innovation is about unfolding the potential and the use of a physical product. Hence, service innovation has an important role to play in the transforming of Europe into green and sustainable societies.

At the same time service innovation is vital when it comes to handle demographic change in Europe. An ageing population with a growing demand for public services along with fewer human resources accelerates the need of new innovative solutions. 

The use of robot technology enables more efficient cleaning in the health care sector. And when technology can facilitate a doctor's consultation with a patient, physical attendance is no longer necessarily needed.

The Danish government has allocated 400 million Euros to a dedicated programme (2009 to 2015) directed towards developing and improving public sector services through the implementation of labour-saving technologies.

Whether speaking of climate change, environment or demographic change great economic and societal potential can be realized through service innovation. For this reason Denmark is very pleased to be part of the Pro-INNO-Net EPISIS. I believe that this project will show the way to stronger and better coordinated support for innovations in European service enterprises.

The importance of public-private partnerships

A new Danish analysis shows that companies that cooperate with public research institutions experience 15 percent higher productivity per employee than companies that do their research and development on their own. This also applies to the service sector.

Recently, the Danish government has launched initiatives to strengthen public-private partnerships. For instance, a new matching fund will be established.

The fund will make it possible to reward universities and research institutions that succeed in attracting new research funds from companies, from foundations and from private individuals by granting them a similar public extra allocation.

In addition, the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation has specific attention towards the strengthening and expansion of partnerships between service enterprises and public research institutions.

At European level we must improve the framework conditions for service innovation including explicit focus on public-private partnerships. This is why I welcome the forthcoming European Research and Innovation plan which will address these issues.

Furthermore, it is my hope that the new Framework Programme, FP8, will contribute to the development of more research on service innovation.

In addition, since a major part of the service companies are small enterprises, it is important to cut the red tape and promote a more trust based approach. This is necessary if we want a larger number of smaller enterprises to participate in the FP8 projects.

From a Danish perspective public-private partnerships are vital pillars for a successful enlargement of service innovation. Support to boost initiatives of this kind should be included in the European Research and Innovation Plan.

In conclusion

The European 2020 strategy highlights the need for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Successful service innovation will help fulfill the EU 2020 plan by creating new jobs.

At the same time service innovation has a significant potential to address social challenges such as demographic change, health, environment and climate change.

It is my hope that this conference will entail useful discussions and perspectives on the future framework conditions and policy tools to strengthen service innovation in Europe.

Thank you.