Grasping Europe's innovation policy

The European Commission does not have a directorate-general responsible for innovation as such. This is not surprising as many legal interventions (in addition to many budgetary interventions) have an impact on innovation, directly (e.g. intellectual property law, R&D policy) or indirectly (competition law, state aid regime, standardization practices). Thus, one wonders: Does Europe have the right innovation policy? Does it have a coherent innovation policy to start with? How do various policy interventions affect the growth rate of the economy? Those are the questions that TILEC will be investigating in the coming years as part of a larger research effort undertaken with researchers at CEPR, Université Libre de Bruxelles, DIW Berlin, Bocconi University and University of Oslo, and funded by the European Commission under its 7th framework program under the name of GRASP. This project, led by TILEC director Pierre Larouche, will allow TILEC to increase the breadth of its already sizable research on innovation as well as further the links between economists and legal scholars throughout Europe. Along Pierre Larouche, Cédric Argenton, Bert Willems and Eric van Damme were involved in the preparation of the research program, which will run for 4 years starting in 2010.