Visiting the Viva Technology show on June 17, Emmanuel Macron announced his desire to reach
"at least 100 French unicorns by 2030"
, i.e. 73 new digital start-ups valued at more than a billion dollars.
An ambitious objective that sums up the importance given to start-ups in industry and
deep tech
by the Government since 2017.
And the figures confirm it: 3.25 billion euros in public funding will be mobilized between 2021 and 2025 for the ecosystem of start-ups and innovative companies on various mechanisms - innovation competitions, structuring R&D projects (i-Demo) or counter aids including
deep tech
aids .
To go further, last October, the President of the Republic announced France 2030, an investment plan of 54 billion euros over five years aimed at developing industrial competitiveness and future technologies to
"increase the capacity of the French economy to grow through innovation"
.
Good news for start-ups in France: an additional 2.3 billion euros will be mobilized to support them through to industrialization.
This ambitious policy in favor of innovation in our country is made possible by the active support of the European Union, which has made research and innovation its third item of expenditure (behind the cohesion policy and the agricultural community): its contribution to France in this sector was 9.25 billion euros for the period 2014-2020[1] .
95.5 billion euros for research and innovation
In the last financial year (2014-2020), the EU launched a seven-year research program of almost 80 billion euros, Horizon 2020. It was replaced by Horizon Europe (2021-2027), endowed with 95.5 billion euros – an increase of 30% – which emphasizes the environment and digital technology.
“Investing in research and innovation means investing in the future of Europe, in knowledge and in new solutions (…). As such, Horizon Europe is the most ambitious research and innovation program ever undertaken
,” said Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.
Concretely, a start-up or an innovative SME can present a project on its own and be supported by the EIC system [2] (case of very innovative companies with a risky project) or Eurostars [3] in the case of a collaborative project. of transnational innovation close to the market [4].
"Horizon Europe is now fully operational: I encourage researchers and innovators from across the EU to respond to calls for proposals to find solutions to improve our daily lives"
, insisted Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation , research, culture, education and youth.
Joint projects and the global technology race
From the production of satellites to work on Covid-19, joint projects funded by Europe are numerous.
For example, the European Commission launched eight years ago the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), which over the years have become the preferred instrument for keeping Europe in the global technological race.
“Our rules (…) allow Member States and companies to jointly invest in innovation and disruptive infrastructure, when the market alone is not sufficient to meet expectations, because the risks are too high. important for a single Member State or a single company", explains
Margrethe
Vestager
, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy.
For example, 23 Member States and Norway started the construction of an IPCEI on hydrogen in December 2020. Objective: to constitute a real launching pad for the decarbonized hydrogen sector in Europe.
In this context, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, presented in March the first 15 French projects which have been selected and transmitted to the European Commission.
In total, more than 7 billion euros of public and private investments could be deployed following the investigation by the services of the European Commission.
While the French presidency of the European Union ended a few days ago with the handover to the Czech Republic, 241 winners were rewarded on July 4 during the 2021-2022 ceremony of the Innovation Competitions of the state.
[1] Source: European Commission.
[2] European Innovation Council: existing in pilot form since 2018, the European Innovation Council (EIC) is now officially launched under the name “
Horizon Europe
”.
It aims to support breakthrough innovations, from their emergence to their launch on the market.
[3] Created as part of the Horizon 2020 plan, the Eurostars program supports innovative SMEs involved in European collaborative projects and primarily targets companies that make significant investments in R&D.
[4] Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty.
