The European Commission's DG Head of Innovation Policy and Access to Finance, András Inotai, noted during the
EU Deep Tech Conference on June 2, 2023, that the EU's most innovative regions are 9 times more inventive than
its least innovative ones (European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2023). With the Widening Countries, primarily in
Eastern Europe, lagging behind, this enormous disparity demonstrates the unequal distribution of innovation potential
across Europe. Numerous Widening Countries continue to perform worse than more established EU Member States
in terms of innovation capacity, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). Countries such as Bulgaria,
Romania, and Latvia, for instance, are frequently classified as "Modest Innovators," meaning that their levels of
innovation performance fall short of 50% of the EU average. The differences in R&I capability across Europe are
further exacerbated by the fact that less than 20% of academics from Widening Countries are involved in significant
EU-funded initiatives, as highlighted in the European Research Area (ERA) plan.
BOOST addresses the critical need to enhance the R&I capacities and competitiveness of Widening Countries in
Europe by fostering collaboration between academic and non-academic sectors. The emphasis is on creating
specialized training curricula and resources that bolster the human capital foundation of expanding nations and
improve researchers' employability via international mobility and industrial collaboration. |