Tasks
The purpose of the Expert Panel was to produce recommendations that will have a significant impact on the future development of the services innovation agenda in Europe. Its aim was, in particular, to help provide expert input on how to shape new and innovative service markets and sectors in Europe, by providing innovative service companies with better innovation support.
Overall, the Expert Panel’s main tasks included:
- Analyse the scope for complementarities between the main policies and financial instruments at Community level that support innovation in services, draw conclusions and formulate recommendations.
- Validate services innovation policies and directions, and reflect on steps and actions that could to be taken to improve their implementation. This will involve assessing current policy programmes that support enterprises.
- Assess the need for improved framework conditions in selected service sectors and emerging service markets with the aim to prepare for concerted policy actions to support them at the national and European levels.
- Liaise with the INNO-Net EPISIS on "better policies and instruments to support innovation in services" and, where appropriate, liaise with other strategic initiatives that support service innovation with the view to explore how to better exploit complementarities between them.
- Liaise with the existing European innovation groups such as EPISIS and the European Cluster Policy Group (ECPG) to assess how to apply the concepts of clusters and lead markets more efficiently to service sectors and to prepare for policy recommendations in this respect.
