R&I days: Looking for coherence

Fragmented policies and systems must be brought together, EU’s flagship research conference hears

To outsiders, the EU research landscape can seem an utterly bewildering jungle of overlapping initiatives, some complementary and some diametrically opposed. Now, even those responsible for innovation policy have said the EU’s disparate policies and systems must be made more coherent if the bloc is to compete globally.

“We need to address the fragmentation because we have very thriving ecosystems everywhere in Europe, but we need to connect them,” research and innovation commissioner Mariya Gabriel told the European Commission’s flagship Research and Innovation Days conference on 23 June.