Technological innovation, human capital and social change for sustainability. Lessons learnt from the Industrial Technologies Theme of the EU's Research Framework Programme

Science of the Total Environment 481 (2014) 668–673

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Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Technological innovation, human capital and social change for sustainability. Lessons learnt from the Industrial Technologies Theme of the EU's Research Framework Programme Jesús Alquézar Sabadie European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Belgium

H I G H L I G H T S • • • • •

The EU's strategy focuses on competitiveness and sustainability. R&D plays a critical role. The EU industry is challenged by the disconnection of knowledge creation and production. Human capital, a core EU competitive advantage, is challenged by current reforms. Innovation needs educating on cooperation and creativity, instead of standardisation. A sustainable society requires a social change and, therefore, social innovation.

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Article history: Received 27 June 2012 Received in revised form 21 September 2013 Accepted 25 September 2013 Available online 19 October 2013 Editor: Christian Ludwig Keywords: Research Industry Environment Technology Education Social innovation

a b s t r a c t Europe is facing a twofold challenge. It must maintain or even increase its competitiveness, a basic requirement in a globalised economy and under the current demographic threat. It needs also to tackle the socalled “grand challenges”, especially environmental issues, through a sustainable model of production and consumption. Such challenges should lead to new business and industrial models, based on more sustainable production and consumption chains, from design to end of life. This implies a need for new industrial materials and processes, new skills and, indeed, new values and life-styles. Sustainability and innovation are key elements of EU's Research and Innovation Framework Programmes, particularly in the field of industrial technologies (nanotechnologies, materials and industrial technologies), which objective is to “improve the competitiveness of the European industry and generate knowledge to ensure its transformation from a resource intensive to a knowledge intensive industry”. Sustainability and innovation are interrelated challenges for R&D. Research can develop technical solutions to tackle environmental or societal challenges, but such technologies need to be successfully commercialised to have a real environmental impact. Several socio-economic studies carried-out by the European Commission show not only the emerging technological and industrial trends, but they also emphasise the need for linking sustainable technologies with social change. Human capital and new social behaviours are critical factors to combine economic competitiveness and sustainability: technology alone is no longer able to solve global challenges. But what kind of human capital (skills, behaviours, and values) are we referring to? How to encourage the shift towards a greener society through human capital? Which reforms are needed in education systems to move towards a sustainable economy? Are there examples of social innovation to be extrapolated and/or generalised? © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

“The times they are a-changin'”. Almost half a century after he composed his classical song, Bob Dylan could add an adjective to the refrain: “fast” or “quickly”. He may even say “too fast” or “too quickly”. It is becoming difficult to 0048-9697/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.09.082

remember historical events that happened recently: Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions, nuclear crisis in Japan, Libyan civil war, Escherichia coli food crisis, killing of Bin Laden…. In parallel to such spectacular events, other radical changes are ongoing, even if they do not appear in the cover pages of newspapers and magazines. The World is evolving at a speed without precedents. We are increasingly conscious about the so-called “grand societal challenges”, in particular environmental issues (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, scarcity of food, energy and raw materials).

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Such consciousness is particularly high in Europe…. But Europe is losing its momentum. It is becoming a secondary player in the World, politically and economically (European Commission, 2010a). The European Commission makes a similar diagnosis in its official strategic documents, even if they do not explicitly recognize the European decline. This clearly appears in the Europe 2020 Communication (COM (2010) 2020), which underlines three interrelated challenges: – Europe must maintain or even increase its competitiveness, as a basic requirement in the globalised economy and under the current demographic threat (i.e. ageing population). – It must tackle the societal challenges, in particular those related to environment (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation), through a sustainable model of production and consumption. – Europe must reinforce social and territorial cohesion. In this EU's “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” strategy, research and innovation play a critical role. The flagship initiative “Innovation Union” clearly underlines that “perhaps the biggest challenge for the EU and its Member States is to adopt a much more strategic approach to innovation. An approach whereby innovation is the overarching policy objective, where we take a medium- to longer-term perspective, where all policy instruments, measures and funding are designed to contribute to innovation (…)” (SEC (2010) 1161). In other words, to maintain its competitiveness, Europe must ensure a continuum between research and innovation. These ideas are not new. The “Lisbon Strategy” was already aimed at making the European Union (EU) “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” by 2010 (Lisbon European Council, 2000). Indeed, several years ago, in 1997, the European Commission published its “First Action Plan for Innovation in Europe”, with the goal of putting “innovation at the service of growth and employment”, in particular through a “better articulation of research and innovation” (European Commission, 1997). Is the European Union just repeating the same concepts in a rapidly changing World? Is the “knowledge-based economy” model a realistic objective for Europe or just political slogan? This paper tries to analyse critically the results, weaknesses and challenges of the EU's action on research in the field of industrial technologies. Why industrial technologies? There are two main reasons to select this area. First of all, industrial technologies1 are part of the “Key Enabling Technologies” that “will be at the forefront of managing the shift to a low carbon, knowledge-based economy” (COM (2009) 512/3). Therefore, they should play a critical role in an expected economic transition. Secondly, the European industry lives a paradox. On the one hand, delocalisation shows that the traditional European manufacturing can hardly compete with low wages countries like China but, on the other hand, the current crisis indicates that industrial economies like Germany are stronger and more resistant than services or constructionbased ones (Beck and Scherrer, 2010; Deutsche Bank Research, 2011). This alerts about the still relevant role of industry in European economy. The European industry has a chance to compete with emerging lowwages economies through high added-value products and services: new materials, new processes and new services linked to products. This also means new business and industrial models, based on more sustainable production–consumption chain (from design to end of life, comprising physical production, sources of energy, maintenance of products, recycling, etc.) and, together with innovative new materials and processes, also new skills and probably new values and life-styles. Accountability look counterproductive compared with those focusing on soft skills like cooperation and creativity. 1 Industrial technologies, in the EU jargon, cover Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production technologies (NMP). It is one of the ten thematic priorities of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) on Research, within the specific programme “Cooperation”.

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* These are indeed competences and behaviours more consistent with a sustainable society than the current consumerist, marketoriented paradigm. The myth of technologically-supported unlimited growth is over. A sustainable society requires social change and, therefore, social innovation. The current crisis could be an opportunity for this. 2. The EU's Framework Programme on research and industrial technologies Sustainability and, increasingly, innovation are key elements of European Union's Research Framework Programmes (FP). Environment is part of the Framework Programmes since the very beginning, when FP1 was launched in 1984. Since then, funding for environmental research has constantly increased, managed through specific sub-programmes (European Commission, 2012). Sustainable issues are also integrated in other R&D areas funded by the EU. In parallel, innovation is a key leitmotiv of EU funding, at least since FP6 (2002–2006) but more explicitly with FP7 (2007–2013). This combination of sustainability and innovation appears very clearly in the field of industrial technologies, which objective is to “improve the competitiveness of European industry and generate knowledge to ensure its transformation from a resource-intensive to a knowledge-intensive industry” (COM (2009) 512/3). In fact, sustainability and innovation are two interrelated challenges for R&D. Research can develop technical solutions to tackle environmental or societal challenges (e.g. technologies to reduce CO2 emissions, to be more energy-efficient, to replace scarce raw materials), but to be environmentally effective, technologies must be successfully commercialised. The EU funding under FP6 (2002–2006) to industrial technologies amounted EUR 1,534,240,630. The Commission signed 444 collaborative contracts, with participation of 6018 organisations. The NMP budget represented 9.2% of total EU's contribution. For the ongoing FP7 (2007–2013), the EU Member States earmarked a total of EUR 3.5billion for funding the industrial technologies/NMP theme. The Commission has launched several evaluation and impact assessment studies to analyse added-value of its intervention in the field of NMP. For instance, the Ex Post Evaluation of FP6 (NMP) at strategic level (Oxford Research and KMFA, 2010)2 shows that: – FP6 was a success in scientific terms, especially when compared with the European Research Area (ERA) objectives. The benefits of FP6 include network building, better access to international knowledge, creation of sustainable international relationships for research and the possibility to work in bigger and international consortia towards more ambitious goals. Data shows that EU funding allows participants to launch R&D projects that other (national or regional) funds cannot create: Bigger scale of projects, cooperation between international actors, and higher technological ambition. FP is definitely contributing to the scientific advancement of industrial technologies in Europe, creating new knowledge in areas like nanomedicine, forestry, energy, electronics, textiles, machine tools and robotics. The number of peer-reviewed publications is impressive: on average, 55 per project under FP6 (INNO AG-Atlantis, 2011)! – Economic impacts were not the priority under FP6, compared with knowledge creation. Nevertheless, nearly half of the project coordinators in NMP FP6 claimed they produced an innovation related output, such as process innovations, product innovations or patents/ licences. An evolution towards innovation appeared in the last period of FP6 and, more clearly, under FP7, both in terms of programme definition (industry-driven agenda) and results (highest share of participation of private for profit organisations and positive statistics on commercial returns, patents and spin-offs). 2 An ex post evaluation of FP7 is going to be carried out in 2014. FP7 data presented here are just preliminary, coming from monitoring actions.

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In 2011, FP7-NMP projects were also employing 67.2 people by project on average, of which 28.5% were women. Opportunities are also given to young researchers (14% of staff were PhD students). Even if most of these jobs have a temporary nature and are hardly sustainable at the end of the project, the skills acquired are long-lasting, improving job opportunities in future careers. A survey carried out for the Ex Post Evaluation of FP6 (NMP) at project level showed that for 59.5% of FP6 participants, the impact on R&D capacities of staff involved in EU-funded projects will have a long (2–5 years) or very long lifetime3 (INNO AG-Atlantis, 2011). – Societal and environmental impacts of FP6 were more disappointing. According to project coordinators, contributions of FP6 to sustainability, health, ethical and gender issues or management of natural resources were quite or very low. A succinct analysis of the calls for proposals under FP7 shows a clear improvement compared with FP6: environment and other societal challenges much more integrated, especially in areas like nanotechnologies where health and ethical issues are becoming critical aspects taken into account. FP6 nevertheless contributed to establish multidisciplinary teams, making scientists aware of societal and environmental issues (Oxford Research and KMFA, 2010). Indeed, sustainability is now one of the main guiding principles of the EU's R&D policy. Projects potentially negative for environment have few chances to be funded. In this sense, a quick reading of the Work Programme 2011 for the NMP theme4 is very illustrative. Its headings include “maximising the contribution of Nanotechnology to sustainable development”, “nanotechnology for benefiting environment, energy and health”, “advanced packaging materials from renewable biogenic resources”, “Eco-design for new products”, “eco-efficient management of industrial water”, etc. More in detail, concepts like “recycling”, “low-carbon economy”, “improved environmental friendliness”, “energy efficiency”, amongst others, constantly appear amongst the expected goals of submitted proposals. The integration of innovation and sustainability in R&D funding represents is strong message: the future European industry must be green. At the eve of the new Horizon 2020 programme, FP has so far demonstrated to be strong in capacity-building. They enable participants to establish international teams towards scientifically and technically more ambitious goals. They establish sustainable networks between research centres, academia and industry, at international scale. FPs give opportunities to young researchers and enables scientists to continue their career, providing them multidisciplinary skills and experiences. Even if knowledge-creation remained predominant until FP7, innovation issues have been increasingly introduced, with positive effects on the competitiveness potential of firms that participate, building-up capacities and a better reputation. FP6 was not so successful in delivering specific market results (turnover, market shares) or productivity gains, but preliminary data on FP7 shows a clear improvement due to a reinforced policy orientation towards innovation, something that translates to the higher number of industrial organisations participating. This information summarizes the main results and impacts of FP6 and FP7 for industrial technologies/NMP. Nevertheless, it is even more interesting to understand how the topics of R&D projects are defined. This allows us to understand which models of research, innovation and industry the EU promote. 3. Industrial forward-looking studies, policy definition and European industrial challenges EU strategies, policies and priorities for R&D are the result of a complex system where evidence-base studies and stakeholders' groups 3 4

For industry, the percentage was lower, but still positive: 47.5%. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/docs/wp/cooperation/nmp/d-wp-201101_en.pdf.

interlink. Evaluation studies, impact assessments and forward-looking projects are combined with the work of expert groups and stakeholders' platforms, with a strong participation of industry. Examples are the NMP Expert Advisory Group (Kiparissides, 2010), European Technology Platforms like Manufuture (2006) or Suschem (2005) or other industryled organisations like the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS). Forward-looking studies and research projects include foresights, roadmaps or visions, with different methodologies and focuses — from sectoral to very comprehensive, from technologically-oriented to socio-economic. Such groups and documents are coincident on a basic idea: nowadays, a competitive industry must adapt very quickly its products to the changing customers' needs. Consequently, the ways of working and, therefore, machines and tools have to be more and more flexible. Manufacturing must be self-adaptative, reconfigurable, multi-functional and cross-technological, with a user-friendly human–machine interaction. The role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will continue to increase: industrial processes are more and more complex, which implies the need for computer-aided modelling and simulations. They agree on the idea that the use of new materials can allow traditional industries challenged by low-wage economies to be competitive, creating new products or giving better properties to those existent. The FP6 projects CleverTex (2005–2008) and NanoForest (2004–2005) showed how traditional sectors like textile or the forest products industry can still compete if they are able to innovate. “Smart” textiles like conductive materials and lighting fibres, electronic components and sensors, or materials generating energy and power supply, amongst others, can be applied in sectors such as healthcare, automotive, protective clothing, interior textiles, and communication and entertainment markets. Experts estimate that intelligent textiles could represent around 10% of all textile market by 2020, especially in the clothing branch. Something similar can be said about the forest industry, where the refinement of wood-based raw materials, with improved performance and added-value (i.e. better wood properties like moisture sensitivity, microbial or thermal decay; enhanced durability at different conditions; excellent fire properties; eco-efficiency and sustainability of the truly renewable raw material; etc.) has the potential to maintain or even increase the European competitiveness of the sector (Alquézar and Anastasiou, 2010). From the point of view of technologies, the keyword is integration: integration between different technologies and materials, integration between production and services, integration between different stakeholders towards a common goal, integration between different sectors and activities…. Such integration creates a number of difficulties. For instance, suppliers are not always ready to follow the needs of innovative enterprises. This issue is very common when dealing with nanotechnologies. Even if the potential pivotal role of nanotechnologies for industrial development is commonly acknowledged, it is still confronted to several issues. Nanotechnologies require (costly) basic research to improve understanding of materials' work, suitable raw materials or equipments have to be developed, their production price remain too expensive and, last but not least, they need to follow a long and arduous process to legally approve some applications (particularly, healthrelated). Not to mention ethical aspects, that should be openly discussed at all levels. Such technological changes are not without consequences for management. Forward-looking studies on industrial technologies underline that management styles need also to be renewed. First of all, manufacturing has to solve technical demands (adaptability, economic performance, and reliability), while being environment-friendly and safe. New business models have to be increasingly social and environmental responsible, being open to innovation. Competitiveness requires innovation, which relies on the capacity of organisations to anticipate and prepare for changes, “looking for options and opportunities for change before the business is forced to change”

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(Willenius, 2008: 67). This means that management should be able to integrate short- and long-term thinking, as well as the ability to recognize weak signals and to learn from front-line workers' skills and expertise (Willenius, 2008). In fact, it is estimated that over 70% of profitable innovations are nowadays coming from the workers themselves,5 while only 8% from R&D departments (Bhidé, 2004). Innovation appears in companies able to adapt themselves to clients' demands or to create new needs — from SMS to Apple's devices. Will these industrial and R&D orientations be enough to maintain European competitiveness, while contributing to tackle societal challenges — especially, environmental ones? According to the European Commission' logic, Europe can just compete by capitalizing on its sizeable R&D investments or, in other words, ensuring a high degree of commercial exploitation. But some macro data are not very optimistic. As showed by Gabriel Crean,6 there is a strong disconnection between patents and manufacturing shares in the World: – For Li-ion batteries, for instance, Europe produces 31% of patents… but 87% of their production is made in Asia. – For biotechnologies, 36% of patents are registered in Europe… but European production of bio-ethanol is just 5% of the global one. – Concerning photo-voltaic, the European share of patents is 29%, compared with a production of 13%… and a market reaching 77%! – Last but not least, there is just one semiconductor factory planned in Europe, compared with 20 in Asia. This shows very clearly that few industrial developments are expected in Europe in the coming years, and follows the trend of other (mature) sectors like chemical, which only new European plants are for biotechnologies. The disconnection between knowledge creation and actual production is critical. It puts under question the whole European strategy for economic development. For example, the four major Chinese photovoltaic companies are publicly supported by government-owned bank “loans” of around $21 billion…. Other micro-data are not so pessimistic. According to a company survey carried-out on behalf of the European Commission, which sample was dominated by NMP-related companies, the EU industry has a moderately positive perception about the future position of Europe in terms of production (2.8 in a scale going from -10 to 10) and respondents expected an increase in demand (8 in a scale going from −20 to 20). They even expect to have required new staff in fields like R&D, Engineering and Marketing, Sales and Business development position (Gelderblom et al., 2012). So, does this mean that, in spite of negative macro-economic statistics, Europe has still some competitive advantages? Is European industry viable? 4. Human capital: a European competitive advantage. For how long? According to NMP forward-looking studies, skills are a basic condition for the future economy and society: “Human capital will replace physical capital at the core of competitive advantage”, said the FP6 project FutMan (VV.AA., 2003:23). The importance of human capital is underlined by several foresight projects in the field of industrial technologies, but mainly as an obstacle for development. From the quantitative point of view, the low attractiveness of scientific and engineering careers is often evoked (see the FP6 projects ManVis, Eumecha-pro or Smart). Consequently, capacities for high-technology manufacturing are decreasing, at a time of increasing technological needs for industry (Johnson and Jones, 2006; Kiparissides, 2010). Something similar can be said about vocational 5 Sala-i-Martín, X., at the 2nd High Level Conference on Industrial Competitiveness (Brussels, 26 April 2010). 6 Crean, G., at the Workshop on Enabling Technologies in Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding (Brussels, 6 June 2011).

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education and training (VET), which attractiveness continues to be challenged when European industry needs highly qualified workers (Cedefop, 2010). The impact of these trends can be particularly dramatic in Europe, where one of the main competitive advantages is educated people (Salhberg, 2010). Indeed, factors related to human capital play an essential role in competitiveness indices like the one published yearly by the World Economic Forum, but if their importance is not often underlined — especially when compared with macro-economic variables (Alquézar and Johansen, 2010). Despite an apparent (political and theoretical) consensus about the relevance of education, it plays a secondary role in the Europe 2020 Strategy (COM (2010) 2020). In this Communication, education appears for the first time to mention the issue of early school leavers, while establishing a target for the share of population having obtained a tertiary education diploma (p.9). Of course, it prioritizes “improving educational outcomes and the quality and outputs of education institutions” (p.10), but no concrete proposals are presented, nor in terms of specific orientations, neither in budgetary terms. The “knowledge triangle” concept (education–research–innovation), so important for the Lisbon Strategy, is not anymore mentioned. The centre of gravity is now clearly situated between research and innovation, while education and training become “the forgotten side of the Knowledge Triangle” (European Commission, 2010b: 11). This is not really surprising. According to Eurostat data,7 between 2000 and 2008, public investment in education as a percentage of total public expenditure has increased by 1.66% only. Within the Euro-zone (2001–2008), just by 0.66%. Indeed, EU countries like Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania or Portugal, amongst others, have experienced decreases, sometimes very strong.8 It seems clear that, beyond political discourses, education and training are not a priority in European policy. If in a decade of economic growth education efforts have been moderate, what can we expect during economic crisis and of austerity of the public sector? Financial cuts Southern Europe provide good examples good example. They particularly affect teachers (as public employees) and students, who are obliged to pay increasing fees for education. In the meantime, the gap between European and Asian workers' skill decreases. Delocalisation to China or India is not just a matter of low wages, but of low wages of skilled workers who work in ultra-flexible work conditions. The wage differential between Asia and Western countries is shortening. While salaries in Asian countries more than doubled in the last decade, wages in our regions slightly increased. Indeed, the current crisis had different effects in industrialized and emerging economies: “while growth in advanced economies – and in the world as a whole – turned negative in 2009, this has not generally been the case in emerging and developing economies, where growth has merely decelerated” (ILO, 2010). Industrial delocalisation means that Europe transfers also its knowhow, losing a core competitive advantage. A competitive advantage… for how long? There is a consensus in forward-looking studies on industrial technologies concerning the importance of human capital, but, in qualitative terms, they are not very precise. What kind of human capital (e.g. skills, attitudes, and values) are and will be necessary? Which reforms, which education models are needed to move towards a sustainable economy and society? How to implement them? This is precisely a long-lasting debate amongst education specialists and practitioners. The discussion is more and more present in massmedia (see for instance Alvarez and Ortín, 2011; Montserrat, 2011). Some consider that, to increase economic competitiveness, education and training (and even research) have to be based on market principles: competition between pupils, between education institutions (schools or 7

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/. Between the same reference years, public expenditure in education as a percentage of GDP has increased by 3.9%. In the meantime (2001–2008), the GDP of EU-27 increased by 30.2%. 8

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universities), between teachers, between researchers, even between educational (and research) systems…. Consistently to this logic, market principles are applied to education and training systems. As a corollary, standardisation and accountability are proposed as solutions to improve quality and effectiveness of education almost everywhere, under the influence of Anglo-Saxon countries (Salhberg, 2006). Probably the best example of this so-called Global Education Reform Movement is the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is often presented, especially in mass-media, as the main international comparison tool between “good” and “bad” education systems, leading to policy reforms in National systems (Grek, 2009). Such principles are contested by other authors, who consider that standardisation and accountability may be counterproductive for enhancing economic competitiveness. In our current changing societies, principles like flexibility, interpersonal skills, risk-taking and creativity, essential to promote innovation, may be more efficient than just focusing on numeracy, literacy and scientific competences (Salhberg, 2006). The basic idea is based on a paradox: to enhance the economic competitiveness of our societies, education and training systems should be based on less competition. Education should be founded on principles like collaboration, mutual trust and social interaction (Salhberg and Oldroyd, 2010). It is interesting to observe that, despite discourses about the necessary collaboration between industry and education, there is an enormous gap between both communities of experts and practitioners. Few bridges have been built to put together education and industry, beyond collaboration on R&D (Gelderblom et al., 2012). A common work of both communities could enlarge the debates, bringing them outside their traditional borders and paradigms. For instance, the forwardlooking studies on industrial technologies do not participate in the above-mentioned debate on education policy, even if they provide some clues rarely taken into account by education and training specialists. Basically, a competitive industry requires innovation, integration and adaptability. These principles hardly match with standardisation and accountability. When foresight studies mention user-friendly worker–machine interactions in industry, as well as open management styles, a new role is attributed to workers, whose technical skills should be accompanied by a large set of soft or transversal skills like communication, creativity, risk-taking, problem-solving, interpersonal skills, etc. (Alquézar and Anastasiou, 2010). Company surveys show that industry is perfectly conscious about the relevance of skills like innovation, creativity, problem solving or business development, considered at least as important as technical ones (Gelderblom et al., 2012).

5. Social change and societal challenges What about societal challenges? The previous analysis focused mainly on competitiveness, but few things have been said about global challenges like sustainability. Are science and technology, applied to industry, enough to tackle societal challenges, as argued by climate change sceptics? For instance, George W. Bush used such argument to do not sign the Kyoto Protocol (Usher, 2005). According to forward-looking studies in the area of industrial technologies, a sustainable economy is un-realistic without the development and adoption of new socio-political paradigms and, consequently, of both new production and consumption patterns (VV.AA, 2003). Currently, there is a clear discrepancy between dominant social paradigms and values (i.e. consumption sovereignty in a market economy) and sustainability. This was already explained by the FP6 “Score!” project. The Brazilian economist Carlos Lessa goes even further. For him, the “consumist subject” has lost his own identity and his more essential values like justice, solidarity, peace or freedom (Arias, 2011). For him, the current crisis is not just economic and financial, but ethical and social.

If we want a sustainable future, we need to live, work and consume in a different way. There is an ongoing paradigm change in the World, which centre of gravity is moving to Asia. Sustainability requires another paradigm shift, this time of social nature. Such change will require long efforts, shared between citizens/consumers, political leaders, researchers and industry (Alquézar and Anastasiou, 2010). The idea of science- and technology-supported unlimited progress (and growth), dominant at least since Enlightenment, is now under question. Research and innovation can help to tackle grand challenges, developing and applying resource-efficient technologies, but they can hardly solve them. Without social innovation the technical developments might not be put into practice at a large scale. Social innovation requires, indeed, a bottom-up approach and needs the participatory approach of citizens, as formulated by a business panel on future EU innovation policy: People centred innovation is crucial in our way of thinking about policy, actions and instruments. It means that public policy can link people to opportunities, infrastructures, competencies and incentives. Innovation policy to reinvent a new Europe in the future will involve many actors. It is not about the government running or doing things alone. [European Commission, 2009] There are several examples of social innovators, like “creative communities” (i.e. active, enterprising people who invent and implement new ways of dealing with everyday problems — childcare, care for the elderly, alternative means of transport, shared facilities and services, etc.) or the Slow Food Movement. Forward-looking studies insist on the need of a combination or bottom-up and top-down approaches, insisting also on the need for leadership. Policy-makers could create incentives to move towards new “meta-values”, through higher transparency about environmental and social performance9 or with actions like making working patterns more flexible, facilitate the use of public spaces, new forms of taxes for alternative economies, etc. Are these proposals a new utopia? The situation in Southern Europe countries, where austerity measures are implemented despite a strong popular opposition, seems to indicate a strong break-off between citizenship and political and economic élites. European governments and financial markets are pushing for a “rigorous fiscal orthodoxy” that failed in countries like Argentina, or that moved back Baltic States to output and employment levels of many years ago (Krugman, 2011), while social movements like the Spanish “15-M” are calling for a radical economic, social and political change through demonstrations inspired on the “wikirevolutions” of the Arab world (Castells, 2011). The expected efforts shared between citizens and political leaders seem to have been replaced by a clash between traditional economic and political paradigms and a strong and frustrated desire for social innovation, led by highly-skilled but economically (and even socially) excluded youngsters. It is interesting to reflect of the role of technologies both in the Arabic democratic movements and in Southern European demonstrations. Such movements have not been produced by technologies, but they expanded thanks to technologies (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube). They are organised in absolutely decentralised way, without a central strategy or leadership (like Wikipedia). Like earthquakes and tsunamis, social change can come at any moment and, especially, when people are not allowed to take part in shaping their society for decades (like in Egypt or Tunisia) or feel excluded (like in Spain). Now, apparently a bottom-up and a top-down vision of societies are confronted. Perhaps, the future of Europe can depend on the final result of such confrontation.

9 See for instance Stiglitz's and Sen's critique of GDP and its use (Stiglitz, 2009; Stiglitz et al., 2010).

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6. Conclusions The European Union is living a critical period of his history. Politically and economically, the EU is losing its momentum. It is becoming a secondary player in the World, apparently superseded by international events and global changes. The EU difficulty to strongly face the current economic and financial crisis is probably the best example of this. The European decline is just part of the picture. There are also global challenges, like sustainability, that need to be tackled urgently. European institutions are aware about this situation. The Europe 2020 strategy gives a relevant place to research and innovation. According to its rationale, only through innovation Europe can maintain its competitiveness. Such innovation must be green and knowledgebased in order to ensure a transition from a resource-based economic model to a low carbon one. Logically, in this context, industrial and/or key enabling technologies can play a central role. In spite of very positive effects of EU action in the field of R&D, in particular on industrial technologies, macro-economic statistics show a global disconnection between knowledge creation and actual production. Europe maintains a technological leadership in terms of patents, but Asia is already the main producer of high-medium tech products. Does this mean that the strategy implemented by the EU is based on wrong premises? Europe has still a competitive advantage: its educated people. But education and training does not seem the main priority of Europe, as shown by investment trends. There is even a lack of consensus about the skills that our economies (and societies as a whole) need. Political discourses always underline the importance of education and claim for reforms, but facts (i.e. investments) do not demonstrate a real political commitment… and the content of such reforms remains vague, when not contradictory with economic requirements. Indeed, in the eve of the new Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation, education seems to remain the forgotten side of the knowledge triangle. The myth of science and technology as pillars of unlimited growth and well-being is today over. A sustainable economy is only possible if we live, work and consume in a radically different way. A social paradigm shift is necessary, particularly in Europe, and this requires social innovation at a large scale. Are the European social “wiki-movements” an opportunity for this? References Alquézar J, Anastasiou I. Working paper: forward-looking activities on industrial technologies within FP6–FP7; 2010. (http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/ pdf/working-document-forward-looking-nmp_en.pdf). Alquézar J, Johansen J. How do national economic competitiveness indices view human capital? Eur J Educ 2010;45(No. 2). [Part I]. Alvarez T, Ortín E. “No hay ciencia sin competencia”, in El País, 12 March 2011. Available at: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/hay/ciencia/competicion/elpepiopi/ 20110312elpepiopi_4/Tes, 2011. Arias J. Preguntas incómodas a los indignados. El País; 2011. [6 July]. Beck S, Scherrer C. “The German economic model emerges reinforced from the crisis”, in Global Labour Column, Number 29, August 2010. Available at: http://www.globallabour-university.org/fileadmin/GLU_Column/papers/no_29_Beck_Scherrer.pdf, 2010. Bhidé A. Origin and evolution of new businesses. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2004. Castells M. La wikirevolución del jazmín. La Vanguardia, 29. 2011 [January]. Cedefop. A bridge to the future. European policy for vocational education and training 2002–10. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union; 2010. Deutsche Bank Research. Outlook 2011: German growth remains robust. February 14 Available at:Frankfurt: Deutsche Bank Research; 2011 [http://www.dbresearch. com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000269477.pdf]. European Commission. Premier plan d'action pour l'innovation en Europe. L'innovation au service de la croissance et de l'emploi. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities; 1997. European Commission. Reinvent Europe through innovation: from a knowledge society to an innovation society. Recommendations by a Business Panel on future EU innovation policy — DG Enterprise and Industry; 2009. [Available at: http://www.eurosfaire.prd. fr/7pc/doc/1261563738_business_panel_report_en.pdf].

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