European Union policymakers have in principle put innovation at the heart of competitiveness, in particular in the Europe 2020 strategy. But in merger control, assessments of the innovation effects of mergers are inadequate, even though mergers and acquisitions can have a significant impact on...

Remedying the European Union's deficient overall business research and development performance requires the nurturing of more new companies in new sectors, enabling them to grow to leading-innovator status. This means addressing young leading innovators' access to external finance, particularly...

Development and deployment of clean-energy technologies is crucial if climate targets are to be met cost-effectively. The European Union already has a plan that deals with these issues: the Strategic Energy Technology Plan, which has become central to the achievement of the EU's ambitions. In a...

Europe's failure to specialise in new ICT sectors and firms is likely to hold back Europe's post-crisis recovery. Europe lacks in particular leading platform providers, who are capturing most of the value in the new ICT ecosystem. In-depth analysis of some specific new emerging ICT sectors shows...

Highlights - Research and development spending has risen rapidly in Asia, particularly in China, which is now the world's second R&D spender behind the United States.The increase in Korean and Chinese patent applications has been even more rapid, but Chinese patenting for exploitation on the...

This Policy Contribution accompanies the Policy Brief, 'No Green Growth Without Innovation'. Written by Senior Non-Resident Fellow Philippe Aghion, Senior Resident Fellow Reinhilde Veugelers and Researcher Clément Serre, this paper discusses the state of green innovation and goes into more...

Senior Resident Fellows Reinhilde Veugelers and Bruno van Pottelsberghe provide recommendations for the term of new Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes in this supplement to Bruegel's Memos to the New Commission: Europe's Economic Priorities 2010-2015. They argue that Kroes should move past...

Innovation is key to the future of Europe. This Policy Contribution, written together by Mathias Dewatripont, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management; Bruno van Pottelsberghe and André Sapir, Senior Fellows at Bruegel and professors at ULB; and Reinhilde Veugelers, senior fellow at...

Using new evidence on the digitalisation activities of firms in the European Union and the United States, we document a trend towards digital polarisation based on firms' use of the latest digital technologies and their plans for future investment in digitalisation. A substantial share of firms...

The fast development of vaccines is an essential part of the long-term solution to COVID-19, but vaccine development has high costs and carries the risk of high failure rates.There are currently too few promising projects in the clinical trial pipeline to guarantee at least one vaccine soon....