The EU's new Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, has said Europe has to become better at capitalising on its inventions.
Using the example of the MP3 player, she said the technology behind it was invented in Europe but it was commercialised in the US.
She said that this would have to change, and that Ireland should be at the forefront of bringing bright ideas to the market.
The Commissioner said Europe was not good at capitalising on its invention and it needed to build a fully functioning 'Single Market for Innovation'.
She said Europe was nearly at 'level pegging' with the US in terms of the number of patents registered, yet the cost of patents in the EU was much higher than in the US.
The task was to change this to create a large and harmonised single market for services and a European venture capital market.
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn said she wanted more of the 4,000 third level institutions in the EU to collaborate with industry. She welcomed the fact that NUI Galway and the University of Limerick had created a new alliance with a special emphasis on the further development of the biomedical devices industry.
