Europe in the Intelligent Age 2025

Unlocking investment: Ten European public sector grands projets3 Rapidly implementing a small number of ambitious, high-impact initiatives can accelerate Europe’s journey from ideas to action and impact. Various policy ideas have been presented to improve Europe’s competitiveness. These proposals have been documented in EU-commissioned reports such as those from Mario Draghi33 and Enrico Letta,34 and published as research from organizations such as the McKinsey Global Institute.35 They have also been the subject of recent World Economic Forum dialogues.36 As public and private leaders collaborate on lighthouse initiatives, they might also consider providing the necessary framework conditions to improve the investment landscape. Discussions with government and business leaders highlight 10 ideas and proposals that, if acted on, could help to rapidly catalyse investment and innovation in Europe’s key technological sectors. If stakeholders can work together with the required focus and efficiency, outcomes could begin to be realized within two to three years (Figure 6). They all have one overarching goal: creating an environment for innovation and investment that makes it attractive to build new technologies and business cases in Europe rather than elsewhere. Ten proposed grands projets FIGURE 6 Unleashing entrepreneurship: Creating a 28th regime of uniform and radically simple business rules 1Scaling up: A pro-investment stance on European M&A could drive scale and returns to accelerate investments 2 Speeding up: EU-wide, digital, time-bound approvals could reduce costly complexity 3Simplifying: Opportunity cost-based stance in regulation could reduce the risk of falling behind4 Funding risks: Instituting a pension booster could gear capital for investments towards venture capital and private equity 5Creating markets: Government as at-scale anchor customer could create new markets and revenue streams 6 Building talent magnets: Developing tech “CERNs” could attract top tech talent in priority areas7Securing skills: Reskilling 1 million Europeans could close the skills gap and solidify the tech talent baseline 8 Securing know-how: Global capability transfer could build out European ecosystems and capabilities 9Driving action: Deploying a nerve centre and implementation governance could strengthen competitiveness 10 Europe in the Intelligent Age: From Ideas to Action 16