Presentation : Falilou Fall, Robert Grundke and Emilia Soldani, OECD
Followed by a discussion with:
Klaus Friesenbichler, Austrian Institute of Economic Research
Christina Kraus, meshcloud
Dirk Schumacher, KfW
Elisa Ughetto, Politecnico di Torino
Moderated by: Nicola Brandt, OECD
Austria, Germany and Italy all suffer from a comparatively weak entrepreneurial environment with too few young, dynamic and fast-growing companies. Despite some successful innovation and start-up clusters, promising inventions emerging from universities rarely translate into thriving businesses headquartered in Europe. The stakes are high, since it is precisely this missing layer that could power productivity growth and industrial modernisation — not least in the energy and automotive sectors, where German and Austrian incumbents are facing growing Chinese competition.
The panel discusses a range of policy approaches for reigniting business dynamism in support of industrial modernization: what it would take to unlock the full potential of the European single market and its venture capital markets; the role of conditions for AI-driven innovation which include talent, access to data, and compute capacity; regulatory reform and innovation policy and whether attention should also turn to the other end of the business lifecycle — ageing business owners and the challenge of succession.
The event language will be English.
