Nobel Prize winner says Europe needs integrated single market to spur breakthrough innovation

Nobel-Prize winner Philippe Aghion has said that Europe needs an integrated single market to boost the returns from innovation.

Speaking at a public hearing in the European Parliament on 25/02/2026, Aghion, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for economics, said that an integrated single market would increase returns to innovation and intensify competition, which was a key driver of breakthrough innovation.

He said that Europe produced excellent research capable of leading to such innovation, yet the results of these "breakthroughs" were ultimately developed outside Europe.

Speaking at a hearing on the proposed European Competitiveness Fund for the 2028-2034 financing period, Aghion said that it was “worrisome and striking” that a large proportion of patents for disruptive technologies cited European research while the resulting innovations were developed in the US and, increasingly, in China, rather than in Europe.

He also argued that Europe needed “a well-funded and well-governed basic research system”. He pointed to the success of the European Research Council (ERC) as an example…