Digital innovation

The digital age has transformed the way businesses operate and has become a critical factor in ensuring the resilience of the European economy.

Digital transformation is necessary for the very existence of businesses, irrespective of their size and location. This is not only a matter of achieving productivity gains and keeping up with global competition, but it is essential for the resilience of the European economy to external shocks, where only 20% of European SMEs are highly digitised.

The JRC carries out the Digital Innovation (DigInnova) project, which monitors and analyses the progress in digitising European businesses, with a particular focus on SMEs.

It aims to address digital weaknesses and opportunities for European firms, and provide policy recommendations necessary to increase the competitiveness, resilience and sustainability of the European economy. This is carried out by adopting an ecosystem perspective rather than looking at individual firms and organizations.

In concrete, the main activities of DigInnova are:

• To support the design, implementation and impact assessment of EU digitalisation policies, e.g. the European Digital Innovation Hubs.
• To provide recommendations for the EU digital innovation and digitalisation policies.
• To analyse the level of digital maturity of European firms and of public sector organisations, and characterize the digital gap between the leading and lagging companies, regions and countries in Europe.
• To analyse the impact of digital technologies for business competitiveness, resilience and sustainability, focusing in particular on the role of complementary capabilities and assets, e.g. skills or data.
• To describe new organizational and business models enabled by digital technologies and investigate the efficiency of the markets for digital technologies and services.

This research is part of the long-standing collaboration between the JRC and the Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT).

Ensuring A Europe fit for the digital age is among the key priorities of the European Commission, along with the European Green Deal setting out a plan to transform the EU into a resource-efficient economy.

This research activity responds to those two key priorities by providing evidence-based support in the following areas:

• Digitalisation of the European SMEs for the twin green and digital transitions supporting the European industrial strategy.
• Support to Digital Compass for the EU's Digital Decade policy programme, which proposes that, by 2030, more than 90% of SMEs reach at least a basic level of digital intensity.
• Adoption of key digital technologies under the Digital Europe Programme, including the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs).