Since the election of the new government in October 2011, STI policy has received renewed attention in Danish policy. The ambition has been to develop Denmark’s first comprehensive innovation strategy based on collaborative efforts between the involved ministries, i.e. the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education, the Ministry of Business and Growth and other relevant sectoral ministries, as well as stakeholders from the Danish innovation system. The innovation strategy is the outcome of a strategy process that started in March 2012 and was completed by the end of 2012. A cornerstone of the innovation strategy is the RESEARCH2020 catalogue which was published in June 2012 and contains a presentation of five visions that are intended to represent strategic research horizons to be pursued until the year 2020:
- A society with a green economy
- A society with health and quality of life
- A high-tech society with innovation capacity
- An efficient and competitive society
- A competent, cohesive society
The innovation strategy takes RESEARCH2020 as a starting point, defining priorities and directions for future research efforts.
The vision of the new innovation strategy is that Denmark should become a land of solutions, in which innovative solutions for the grand societal challenges are converted into growth and employment (Danish Government, 2012f). With the new innovation strategy, the Danish government sets a focus on three areas:
- Innovation for the grand societal challenges shall be stimulated by re-focused public demand and procurement policies.
- The knowledge and technology transfer between public research and companies shall be improved.
- The education system shall set a stronger focus on innovation in order to enhance the innovation capacity.
Within these focus areas, 27 individual policy initiatives are defined that the government wishes to implement with the start of 2013. In order to measure the effectiveness of the innovation strategy, the Danish government translates the vision of the innovation strategy into the following STI policy goals:
- The share of companies introducing innovation should be increased, such that Denmark by 2020 is among the five OECD countries with the highest share of innovative enterprises.
- Private investments into R&D should be increased, such that Denmark by 2020 is among the five OECD countries with the highest private investments into R&D as a share of GDP.
- The share of highly educated employees in the private sector should be increased, such that Denmark by 2020 is among the five OECD countries with the highest shares of highly educated employees in the private sector.
It is worth noting that the research policy goals set out in the innovation strategy aim at a “moving target” in the sense that the goals are oriented towards the “best in class” in terms of innovation performance. If the three goals should be fulfilled in 2013, it would mean both the share of innovative enterprises and their R&D investments should be increased by 15 percent while the share of highly educated employees in the public sector should be increased by 28 percent.
