Public Interventions Maria da Graça Carvalho entrega Manifesto on the European Innovation Area à Comissária Mariya Gabriel

Maria da Graça Carvalho, eurodeputada do PSD e presidente do fórum Knowledge4Innovation (K4I) no Parlamento Europeu participou esta terça-feira, dia 26 de janeiro, na receção de novo ano deste fórum. O evento contou ainda com a presença da Comissária Europeia para a Inovação, Investigação, Cultura, Educação e Juventude, Mariya Gabriel.

A eurodeputada do PSD aproveitou a ocasião para reconhecer várias das conquistas do K4I em 2022, desde a concretização da primeira European Innovation Area Summit, em junho, ao trabalho realizado na audição de stakeholders de vários setores e posterior escrita do Manifesto on the European Innovation Area, que apresenta agora ideias inovadores para os decisores políticos europeus.

Neste contexto, entregou este manifesto à Comissária Mariya Gabriel, salientando as boas relações mantidas entre a Comissária e o K4I. Esta sinergia é importantíssima, pois é basilar para o avanço da Agenda Estratégica de Inovação, que dotará a União Europeia de um ambiente propício e recetivo à inovação, potencializando a criação de soluções inovadoras para os cidadãos e empresas europeias.

Leia aqui o discurso na íntegra:

Greetings everyone,

This is a moment for celebration, not for long speeches, so I will be brief.

I am very happy to welcome this New Year in the presence of Commissioner Gabriel and all those of you who worked so hard to promote innovation in Europe.

2022 was not, by all means, an easy year. However, as chair of K4I, I am very proud of what this network achieved.

The first European Innovation Area Summit that we had last June 2022 was a success.

The event date coincided with the publication of the communication on the European Innovation Agenda by the European Commission and represented an opportunity for us to gather in Brussels after some time and talk again of innovation in its different strains.

Before and after the Summit the Knowledge4Innovation has been working hard to build a Manifesto on the European Innovation Area in a way of collecting ideas from stakeholders from several sectors on how to shape the European Innovation Area.

The document kept growing every day, and now collects many cutting-edge ideas that could be really inspirational for policy makers.

Today we will deliver the Manifesto into Commissioner Gabriel’s hands.

Our relation with Commissioner Gabriel is strong and we are happy about the commitments that she is showing to make the European Innovation Agenda moving faster to be able to set the ground to transform our Union into a receptive, efficient and enlightening area to do innovation and bring it to the market.

The Commissioner knows that K4I is committed to serve the objective of providing the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the innovation community with a forum to discuss about innovation from several perspectives.

We are proud of this relationship and we are sure that we can mutually assist each other in the different initiatives to continue with the path outlined in the communication on a European Innovation Agenda. We hope that our Manifesto and the other debates we are going to have in the next period will inspire even further the Commission’s proposals regarding this subject.

This year has just started, but we want to continue climbing this wall altogether. K4I will go ahead and give voice to those who are involved with innovation in everyday lives, organising debates, gathering moments and exploring ideas, in order to produce suggestions that could come handy for policy makers throughout their different roles.

The innovation agenda is perfectly in line with the EU’s twin digital and green transitions, and it can play a decisive role in the accomplishment of the Green Deal goals.

The K4I Manifesto is organised around eight focus areas, representing the pillars around which we should work to get a real European Innovation Area into action.

Among those, we should highlight the importance that the role of women innovators and female-led start-ups will have. This is a subject, which is very dear to Commissioner Gabriel, as it is to me.

The K4I Forum has long advocated for the establishment of a platform that can better coordinate all these ambitions.

Through this event today we are renewing the K4I commitment towards these subjects and stimulating a new engagement for all of us: transforming the Union into a more connected and efficient innovation ecosystem to support the scaling of companies and spur innovation to address challenges in a sustainable way.

Let’s hear what the Commissioner thinks of all this!

Thank you very much!