• Master increasingly complex and multidisciplinary technology and business chains in ICT, partnering, risk-sharing and mobilisation of critical mass across the Union
• Union level action should help industry address a single market perspective and achieve economies of scale and scope
• Collaboration around common, open technology platforms with spill-over and leverage effects will allow a wide range of stakeholders to benefit from new developments and create further innovations
• Partnering at Union level enables consensus building, establishes a visible focal point for international partners, and will support the development of standards and interoperable solutions both in the Union and worldwide

smashHIT Parent Programme
INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP – Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

In line with the flagship initiative ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ (4), the specific objective of ICT research and innovation (R&I) is to enable Europe to support, develop and exploit the opportunities brought by ICT progress for the benefits of its citizens, businesses and scientific communities.

As the world’s largest economy and representing the largest share of the world’s ICT market, worth more than EUR 2 600 billion (EUR 2 600 000 000 000) in 2011, Europe should have legitimate ambitions for its businesses, governments, research and development centres and universities to lead European and global developments in ICT, to grow new business, and to invest more in ICT innovations.

This would require an increase in public investments in ICT R&D in ways that leverage private spending, towards the goal of amplifying investments in the next decade, and significantly more European poles and clusters of world-class excellence in ICT.