Europe 2020 strategy
Europe 2020 strategy for smart sustainable and inclusive growth is the answer to the long-lasting crisis and to the globalisation challenges at the European level.
It relies on research and innovation, as growth drivers.
Europe 2020 aims at strengthening and developing research, innovation, education and training, and digital society in order to overtake structural flaws of the European Union:
- Low investments in research and innovation
- Poor diffusion of ICTs
- Exclusion of large segments of the society from access to scientific knowledge
Smart growth means to provide higher investments in education, research/innovation, and digital society.
Sustainable growth means to develop a more competitive economy able to exploit resources more efficiently with a low environmental impact.
Inclusive growth means to foster employment creating more and higher-qualified jobs, to invest in new skills and new jobs, to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion.
Smart growth for the knowledge economy
A systemic coordination among research, knowledge and innovation is needed in order to develop a knowledge economy that is able to put together ICT potentialities and the opportunity that as many as possible institutional, political and social actors can take advantage of them.
Built on the knowledge triangle and on its strengthening, the knowledge economy is based on three key issues:
- The R&D System determines the research potential
- If it plays its part in a proactive way, the Public Administration represents the most effective transmission belt between the R&D system and the social and productive fabric, transferring research results into society and companies
- The productive system transforms research results into innovation exploitable by large strata of society, through an effective PA and companies networking.
The research capacity, that is, the research potential depends on the quality and quantity of human capital involved in research activities, and thus on the quality and the effectiveness of the training and education system. If the research capacity is high, it supports and ensures an enduring excellent fundamental research, that is able to explore knowledge beyond disciplinary boundaries, peculiarities and sectoral fragmentation.
Scientific research produces knowledge, which radiating through the networked structure of the social and productive fabric, transforms itself in innovation, that is the key driver of economic growth.
The three sides of the knowledge triangle – research, education and innovation – must work in complete synergy, in order:
- To reinforce the innovation capacity in the whole European Union,
- To ensure the development of an economy and society characterised by a high knowledge intensity, and
- To ensure an effective and stable recovery.
In this framework, the Science & Technology Digital Library, being an integrated system providing both access to scientific information and its dissemination, valorisation and effective preservation, has a crucial role. Thanks to cutting-edge technologies it contributes decisively:
- To knowledge spread and to its effective, transparent and widespread use
- To knowledge production increase
- To the advancement of learning
- To the development and strengthening of innovation.
The S&TDL works actively in the three main Smart Growth-related areas:
- Education
- Research/innovation
- Digital society
Among the EU “flagship initiatives” promoting Smart growth, the S&TDL Project is perfectly in line with: