ECIPE Webinar: A DARPA for Europe – Boosting European Innovation and Technological Performance

Europe is now taking steps to boost its technological competitiveness. In the past decade, technological accelerations have left Europe behind – with firm-level performance that does not match those at the frontier of change. Mario Draghi, in his report on European competitiveness, pointed to the absence of European companies that have grown to become large tech leaders. He said, among other things, that “there is no EU company with a market capitalization over EUR 100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years”, while noting there are plenty of such companies that has been established in the US. Recently, observers have debated when, if ever, Europe will have its first company valued over 1 trillion euros. The dominant mood seems to be pessimism.

What can be done? Since 2018, the EU has experimented with new ways to help fund innovative ideas, and established in the current Horizon Programme a European Innovation Council with a EUR 10 billion budget to support game-changing innovations. What can be learned from this programme? Can efforts be expanded to include a “European DARPA” – with inspiration taken from America’s Defence Advanced Research Project Agency? DARPA has intentionally sought to boost ideas that are heterodox and swimming against the stream of current thinking, and in that way helped to spur new and disruptive technologies that later have powered much innovation and firm growth. How could a European DARPA be structured?