"We absolutely must be able to achieve breakthrough innovation" (Jean Tirole, Nobel Prize winner)

"It's absolutely vital that we succeed in breaking innovation. If we don't, we'll fall even further behind in innovation and we'll be totally dependent on the United States and China, both in terms of purchasing power and national defence", declared Jean Tirole, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, at the Common Good Summit organised by TSE (Toulouse School of Economics, France) on 14/06/2024.

Jean Tirole took part in a report by economists from the European Policy Analysis Group on the European innovation ecosystem, published on 10/04.

In his view, three things need to be done to deal with this "danger of downgrading":
• review the direction of spending, given that only €470 M is earmarked for breakthrough research in Horizon Europe;
• change governance, to "ensure that we are more ambitious" and "delegate to high-level scientists the choice of projects" funded on the model of the ERC and American ARPAs;
• hire more programme managers at European level and give them much more freedom.

"We need to completely change our software, and adopt a different approach to innovation."

"In…