EC seeks to increase innovation

The European Commission announced its Innovation Union initiative to increase innovation in areas such as climate change, energy and resource scarcity, and health and aging. Specifically, the EC hopes to achieve a target of spending 3% of EU GDP on R&D by 2020, which the commission said could increase annual GDP by about EUR 800 billion. The EC laid out 10 objectives to meet the goal, including setting up a European Research Area by 2014 to increase cooperation throughout Europe and increasing cooperation with international partners by opening access to EU R&D programs. The initiative also set a goal of adopting a single EU patent system. ...