42 Amendments of Ramón Luis VALCÁRCEL SISO related to 2015/2278(INI)
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 18 a (new)
Citation 18 a (new)
- having regard to the guidance for policy- makers and implementing bodies on "Enabling synergies between European Structural and Investment Funds, Horizon 2020 and other research, innovation and competitiveness-related Union programmes" (SWD (2014)205),
Amendment 5 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 19 a (new)
Citation 19 a (new)
- having regard to the European Parliament Preparatory Action in the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (REMTh),
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas supporttrengthening research, technological development and innovation (R&D&I) is one of the objectives of the Cohesion Policy in the framework of the obligatory thematic concentrationinvestment priorities under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for 2014-2020; whereas the support for innovation differs widely across the EU and within Member States, especially for the exploitation of knowledge and technology in promoting innovation;
Amendment 15 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas for the 2014-2020 programming period, Member States are required, for the first time, to design a research and innovation strategy forvelop national and/or regional smart specialiszation (RIS3) to boost regional innovative capacity and to coordinate R&D&I more effectivelystrategies through involving national and regional managing authorities and stakeholders such as higher education institutions, industry and social partners in an entrepreneurial discovery process;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas RIS3 should help make the European economy more competitive, develop an European added value in innovation, create more better jobs, take on board new experiences, contribute to the dissemination of good practices and develop a new entrepreneurial spirit, combined with a functioning digital single market and smart specialisation that could lead to new skills, knowledge, innovation and employment in order better to exploit research results and take advantage of all forms of innovation;
Amendment 20 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas the development of a RIS3 strategy involves a process of developing multi-stakeholder governance mechanisms identifying the place-based areas of greatest strategic potential, setting strategic priorities and designing efficient support service to enterprises to maximize the knowledge-based development potential of a region;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas the timely and successful development of RIS3 strategies in the Member States is to an important degree dependent on their increasing administrative capacity for programming, budgeting, implementation and evaluation within the policy framework with the aim of enhancing private investment in R&D&I;
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D c (new)
Recital D c (new)
Dc. whereas the RIS3 platform assists bottom-up and peer-to-peer exchanges and transfer of knowledge among participating regions, this process needs to be prioritized with respect to the future design and practice of smart specialization initiatives;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on all actors involved to develop RIS3 on the basis of analyses of each region’s relative strengths and potential, to focus on productive specialisationthe entrepreneurial discovery process to detect emerging niches for smart specialisation, and to enhance a stronger partnership between the public and private sectors;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Supports a broad definition of innovation, as the transformation of an idea into a new or improved product or service introduced on the market, into a new or improved operational process used in industry and commerce or into a new approach to a social service;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Asks regions to design innovative support services schemes complementing or replacing existing support services to help enterprises to absorb new knowledge and technology to remain competitive;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3c. Asks the European Commission to align the general block exemption regulation to allow the seal of excellence conditions to be offered by the ESIF;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 d (new)
Paragraph 3 d (new)
3d. Asks national authorities to invest in regional intelligence and big data mining to demonstrate their unique competitive advantage as well as to understand trends of regional enterprises in the global value chain;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Is of the opinion that the S3 platform, established by DG REGIO and located in the JRC in Seville, plays a key role in advising and benchmarking regions on their innovation strategies, helping lagging regions and enhancing multi-level governance and synergies between regions; stresses that the platform should develop mentoring activities in lagging regions, as well as make a continuous effort to update its database, taking into account the local needs, specificities and priorities of regions and cities;
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Believes that smaller regions have more problems in developing and implementing strategies and calls for the development of proposals to increase the support of these regions in order to enhance the implementation of the S3 strategies and the exchange of best practices;
Amendment 49 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Welcomes the European Commission's latest focus on lagging regions, the latter from a recent pilot project from the European Parliament Preparatory Action in the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace scaled up to regions from 8 Member States until the end of 2017;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 c (new)
Paragraph 4 c (new)
4c. Welcomes the continuation of the Regional Innovation Monitor Plus platform (RIM Plus), established by DG Growth, the creation of a Research Innovation Observatory (RIO), established by DG RTD and different policy-related Knowledge Centers at DG JRC (EC), providing comprehensive data, indicators and guidelines to national and regional S3 stakeholders;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 d (new)
Paragraph 4 d (new)
4d. Looks forward to future details on the European Innovation Council (EIC), aiming to create a 'one stop shop' for innovators, thus bridging the achievements of science with the needs of businesses and public authorities in Europe;
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Reminds the limited role that civil society has played in RIS3 strategies and calls to enhance its participation through platforms and collaborative partnerships as this can help to better shape strategies and enhance cooperation with society and better governance;
Amendment 67 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Asks for a reinforcement of the RIS 3 implementation in the context of the upcoming review of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014;
Amendment 68 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls for continued efforts to encourage a change of mentality and to promote innovative policy approaches to boost intraregional, inter-regional, extra-regional and transnational collaboration through existing tools such as INTERREG in order to continue boosting an European added value in the strategies;
Amendment 74 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Calls for the development of flexibility and coordination mechanisms linking the S3 platform and the Horizon 2020 programme, and encourages regions to use tools such as the Vanguard Initiative, the Seal of Excellence, the Knowledge Exchange Platform (KEP), as well asresults of the RIS3 process and the H2020 implementation and encourages regions to engage in transnational cooperation like the Vanguard Initiative as well as facilitating the development of strategic cluster partnerships, with a view to boosting investment, enhancing coordination, creating synergies and promoting exchanges of views in order to avoid duplication and inefficient spending of public resources;
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Encourages national and European institutions to continue monitoring the "Innovation divide" not only among EU Member States and across NUTS 2 regions, but also and increasingly so within Member States;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Criticises the lack of synergies across ESI Funds and other EU financing instruments, which hinders coordination, coherence and integration of EU funding, and reduces their results and impact; calls to draw more attention and research on how to improve both a strategic approach to synergies and on the combination of funding instruments;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Emphasizes the need to continue and deepen the triple and quadruple helix approaches to smart specialization at the regional level, involving public administrations, businesses, universities and citizens. The role of the latter two sets of participants (i.e. high education/ research institutions and citizens' organizations) should be reinforced in the new EU programming and types of financing;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)
Paragraph 13 b (new)
13b. Calls for an increased support for SMEs and startup companies, as the vast majority of them are being at the forefront of disruptive innovation, as well as contributing significantly to identifying local talents in a variety of fields and employing young people;
Amendment 90 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 c (new)
Paragraph 13 c (new)
13c. Encourages the continuous search of reliable indicators monitoring innovation performance at all levels of governance by better mobilizing and coordinating the resources of Eurostat and other European Commission DGs, as well as of the achievements of OECD, ESPON and other players in this field such as national statistical offices;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Underlines that the integrcoordinated use of ESI Funds with Horizon 2020 and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) provides excellent options to boost innovation at regional, national and EU level;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Calls on the Commission to take into account RIS3 strategies and other programmes of innovation, with special regards to the Integrated Territorial Investments, when developing the European Urban Agenda to create synergies and strong links for an efficient use of resources;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Encourages regions in implementing their RIS3 to strengthen the open innovation mentality and ecosystem collaboration based on the quadruple helix model;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Draws the attention to promoting different city-to-city cooperation and knowledge exchange schemes in the field of smart specialization and innovation, such as the "Open and Agile Smart Cities" supported by the European Commission;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Reminds local and regional decision makers on the importance of their commitment to use the RIS3 as an economic transformation instrument within their own region and thus influencing also the EU policy;
Amendment 111 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Welcomes the concentration of thesefocus of regional strategies on energy, health, information and communications technology, advanced food materials, food, services, tourism, sustainable innovation, manufacturing systems and cultural and creative industries; regrets that only a few regions have created clusters in fields reflecting popular priorities, such as renewable energy, sustainability, the digital agenda, KETs and public health, and encourages more regions to do sohowever regrets a lack of granularity in many of the strategies and calls to refine the prioritization process and thus avoid the risk of focusing all strategies in the same topics; calls to develop strategies not only in high technology, but also in low technology and social innovation;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19a. Believes that the promotion of national observatories of smart specialization strategies can help to build stronger indicator systems for monitoring RIS3, especially regarding methodology and training;
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 b (new)
Paragraph 19 b (new)
19b. Observes that some RIS3 are poorly documented when it comes to demonstrate their unique competitive advantages of the region, while others do not provide evidence regarding the strength of stakeholders to support enterprises for innovation or researchers to provide applied research and to find commercial applications of their results; notes also that some regions have wide strategies and simplistic monitoring indicators; urges to that end an increase of capacity of public authorities to collect and assess the relevant information received, as well as to boost a coordinated effort by regions and central authorities to identify and standardise existing databases, making them accessible to stakeholders;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Calls for periodic monitoring – both quantitative and qualitative – of the implementation of the strategies; criticises the fact that both regions and Member States face similar problems in terms of evaluation of monitoring, and calls on regions to develop strong qualitative and quantitative measures, and to publish regular reports on achievements of their objectives, in order to better analyse the impact of RIS3; and to guarantee transparency and public access to monitoring information; is however aware that strategies will take many years to bear fruit and thus early monitoring should be tailored to reasonable expectations;
Amendment 122 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Encourages regions and Member States to be proactive inwith the frameworktimely implementation of the actions plans, established with the Commission, in view of the target date of December 2016 for compliance with the ex-ante conditionality; asks them to set and implement their monitoring mechanism in a continuous review of the RIS3, focused on specifying priorities and strengthening the links between priorities and concrete economic, regional structure and the future development perspectivesinvestment niches where the regional innovation actors can gain or sustain a competitive advantage;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Is of the opinion that a joint participation in the monitoring and evaluation of relevant instruments under the RIS3 as well as an alignment of monitoring and evaluation for reporting of different instruments can help a lot in this field; calls therefore all stakeholders and decision-makers to create synergies between them and develop arrangements that collect and synthesise data from policies and instruments included in Specific RIS3 strategies;
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24 a (new)
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24a. Believes that the participatory approach in the strategies has to be included in all the processes, including the monitoring and evaluation process, as this will increase the scope for cooperation in achieving RIS3 objectives;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Calls on the Commission to push for a review of the strategies afterin 2017 in order to boost their efficiency and effectiveness and to inform about its contribution to both future Cohesion Policy and Research and Innovation policy after 2020, taking into account the lessons learned from the first years of their implementation, and to organise a European-wide conference, prior to the 7th Cohesion Report, with Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and other stakeholders;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 a (new)
Paragraph 25 a (new)
25a. Calls on the European Commission to keep supporting the role of the S3 platform, to help to increase the granularity of the strategies and to remain focus on the importance of leverage of private investments;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Asks DG Regio and the S3 platform to draft, and widely disseminate, a short policy paper on the past RIS3 experience, focused on the following areas: a SWOT analysis of the experience; lessons learned by regions and main pitfalls observed for each of the six steps described in the RIS3 guide; recommendations and standardised templates for a continuous improvement of the RIS3 to better design the strategies after 2020; human capacity needed to successfully design and implement a RIS3; draws the attention that regional networks interested in research and innovation should be encouraged and supported in promoting the successes and lessons learned in order to embed the thinking in the regions at all levels;