On 22 February 2018, the European Commission (EC) published an input paper by Professor Mariana Mazzucato entitled "Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union - a problem-solving approach to fuel innovation-led growth"
The report describes the rationale for EU level research and innovation missions, the concept, as well as key criteria to select missions and important considerations for their successful implementation. The EC has now launched a public consultation on this paper.Â
The EC is planning a new approach for mission-oriented research in Europe. Prof. Mazzucato had been invited by Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, to write an input paper on the issue of "missions". Missions are to be set in between broad global challenges and specific projects. They should have a clearly defined, measurable target to be achieved through a portfolio of research and innovation actions within a set timeframe. Prof. Mazzucato's paper forms an important basis for future discussions on missions, since the missions will not be laid down in the legal texts for FP9, but will be defined in a parallel programming process. The legal texts will only define the criteria for their selection, and the selection process.
The EC is now calling for feedback to collect the European RTD community's views on different aspects of future research and innovation missions. The results will feed into the preparatory work for the post-2020 EU R&I programme and its implementation. The call for feedback is addressed to the general public as well as to research and innovation stakeholders, and will be open until Tuesday, 3 April 2018. While the VPH Institute is planning to formulate a commonly shared response, we still welcome the in silico medicine community to send their individual inputs to this important initiative.Â
The consultation can be found here, while the Mazzucato paper is available at this link.
