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What do Michael O’Leary, Dr Margaret Chan, Vivienne Westwood, Andrew Witty, and Eric Schmidt have in common?
Let me start with telling you who they are. Perhaps that will help.
Michael O’Leary is the Chief Executive of Ryanair we love to hate. Vivienne Westwood is a leading fashion designer; you know the one with the shocking red hair. Dr Chan is the formidable Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Andrew Witty is the omnipresent CEO of GlaxoSmithKline Group. And Eric Schmidt is the Executive Chairman of Google, all the way from Mountain View, California.
It’s a tough one, I know, so I’ll end the suspense here.
Turns out some inspired soul at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation came up with the above, it must be said, rather innovative list of people (amongst others) to speak today and yesterday at DG Research’s first innovation convention. The convention comes one year after the adoption of the EU’s Innovation Union flagship initiative, the EU’s masterplan to exiting the economic crisis by making Europe more innovation-friendly and competitive.
Fueling innovation to help solve all our problems and create more, sustainable jobs sounds like a viable strategy, but finding the right cocktail of ingredients to achieve such innovation is altogether less obvious. Making Europe the leader of such innovation is an even tougher conundrum.
To help Europe on its merry way, Michael O’Leary offered this bit of advice – ‘get the hell out of Brussels as quick as you can’ he said, or risk losing your innovative streak and new ideas, doomed to be dulled by the politicians and technocrats of the EU. Marvelously constructive advice I thought.
Dr Chan and Andrew Witty were more helpful when discussing their views on how innovation can deliver better health care globally. Innovation is seen as the necessary ingredient if we are going to make the next big discovery in healthcare, something we badly need given ever decreasing national healthcare budgets exacerbated by an ever increasing ageing population.
According to Dr Chan, innovation can come from just doing more with existing resources, given 20-40% of all healthcare spending is wasted. But it can also come from the power of collaboration across the international community, as demonstrated by the examples she cited ranging from the creation of a meningitis vaccine for sub-Saharan Africa through collaborations with industry to tackle tropical diseases.
But both Dr Chan and Witty warned that even when innovations are found through investment in research and development, the power of innovation can only be realised through effective delivery. Put simply, Witty said, ‘research for research sake doesn’t work – we need to know what to do with innovation once we achieve it’.
But I was left wondering whether the current policy and regulatory frameworks across Europe facilitate the required speed and depth of collaboration to achieve and deliver real innovation? Will the proposed funds and much promised reduced red tape in the Commission’s newly proposed research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 (the new FP8) help solve the challenges it seeks to address from well-being and excellent science through to industrial leadership? Dr Chan says yes, so long as the goal of achieving innovation is achieving social benefits (even if those ideas did originate in Brussels).
-Aoife
Will you leave us alone? Not likely.
I’ve been spending quite a bit of time recently with industries which might be described as ‘beleaguered’. The press have decided that they are evil and to blame for society’s ills. The online world is awash with negative comment as people pile in to criticize. Politicians denounce them and regulators sharpen their knives.
In many cases it’s all tremendously unfair, and certainly they think so, but as we know this is not really the point. They are, as the saying goes, being tried in the court of public opinion and are generally looking at a pretty stiff sentence.
What always surprises me is the continued desire by companies or organizations to adopt what might best be described as the “leave us alone” strategy. Broadly, this depends on a line of argument which goes something like this. “We’re really important to the (normally global) economy. You don’t really understand what we do because you’re not technical like us. We’re quite capable of self-regulating. We’re really very responsible (no, really). Best to leave us alone.” Whilst I totally understand the attraction of this approach, I have one small issue with it. I’ve never seen it work. Ever.
Sometimes, one has to bow to the inevitable and even to see the opportunity in said bowing. Do we have a vision for a different and better world? Do we have a solution which everyone can embrace, or at least a suggestion of one? So many companies want to be thought leaders and this can be very hard to do (not least because you need leading thoughts). But in sectors under attack, genuine leadership is often difficult to find as everyone runs for cover, and people are genuinely interested in informed opinion. This is powerful stuff for the company prepared to stick its neck out.
The challenge is always to look beyond the immediate crisis, to the positioning opportunity. A positive, solution-oriented, industry-leading point of view, stated passionately, widely and consistently, can only stand organisations in good stead. It puts their opponents on the back foot and shapes the debate. It raises morale internally and galvanizes the sector. After all, they might as well. The one thing we can say with certainty is that they won’t be left alone.
Nick Andrews
Gastein is the place to be in October
There were a few empty seats in the FH Brussels office back at the beginning of October as many of our healthcare team members made the trek to a very far-away place. Clock up an 8 hour journey involving 2 flights and one shuttle bus journey, and you get to the town of Bad Hofgastein in Austria. Now why on earth would they go there at such a busy time of year?
Our healthcare team was making their way to THE healthcare policy conference of the year in Europe, the annual European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG). The almost weeklong conference is jam-packed with seminars and workshops, involving a cross-section of high-level speakers spanning Commissioners, health economists, patients and industry. Besides helping to run three such workshops, our healthcare team thought they’d share here what makes the trip to EHFG so worthwhile:
- Bringing people together – The EHFG brings many of the top EU, national and regional level policy stakeholders engaged on health issues together in this one isolated place. Real progress by the EU on health can only be achieved with the engagement and cooperation of this mix of stakeholders around the table to discuss common challenges and workable solutions.
- Building a partnership approach- The conference brings together different points of view on the health issues of today. EHFG highlights the need to unite business and policy perspectives, in line with patients who are placed at the core of the discussions. This allows for everyone not only take part in the discussion but also be a part of the proposed solutions.
- Glimpse into the future – EHFG gives a sense of what future challenges lie ahead and what health policies are needed to address these.
- Being part of the solution – Gastein gives everyone an opportunity to propose solutions across all the different health issues from NCDs, e-health, HTA, and more. It’s a great venue to put forward solutions for discussion and contribute to future policy making initiatives in the making.
- Making friends –EHFG provides a unique opportunity to meet and build relationships with the key players on health policy at all levels possibly because you all have nowhere else to go, and because of the inexplicable pull of the infamous Ice Cube bar !
So in the end it really is worth the 8 hour trip (door– to –door) from Brussels, well that and the view’s not half-bad either.
Michelle, Aoife, Clemence and Tatiana
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A Brit in Brussels: Bonfire Night Blues
For British expats living in Brussels, Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th is a low, low point in the calendar. It’s not that we don’t see fireworks all year round here – of course we do. The Brussels authorities make fine use of our over-generous tax contributions to put on a whole range of displays throughout the summer months to mark various, indecipherable occasions. I’m told the same thing happens over Christmas and New Year but, being an expat, that is something I can’t confirm.
No, I’m not going so far as to say that there are no fireworks in this country AT ALL. My point is that come this Saturday, the British expat community will be overcome with a sense of overwhelming ennui. Sure, they’ll be a few scouts putting on a show at the local British School of Brussels, and good on them, but for most of us, November 5th will be just another day sans fireworks. A quick glance at Angloinfo – an online forum for English speakers − shows I’m not the only one to feel disappointed at the prospect of this.
I’m fairly convinced that most people don’t even celebrate Guy Fawkes Night in the comfort of their own homes here. Natural instincts will be telling all right-thinking Brits to take an old shirt and pair of trousers from the cupboard, stuff ‘em full of dead leaves in the garden and burn them on a clumsily constructed bonfire. But we won’t do it. Why? Well, I suppose it’s a bit to do with the origins of the celebration itself. Although few people bat an eyelid at the idea of burning a (symbolic, happily) effigy back home, it’s not really the done thing here – and can lead to all sorts of awkward conversations with indigenous friends and neighbours. It’s hard to explain that although the celebration has lost all sense of historic and religious significance, it remains a central tenet to British culture. Basically, it’s just a bit of a laugh.
So November 5th is a right-off. And it’s a shame really, because for 364 days of the year, Brussels is a fairly natural destination for Brits abroad. Unlike expats of other nationalities, the weather is far from a shock for us (read what Lindsay has to say about how American expats respond to Belgium, for example) – in fact it’s fairly similar to our own weather (invariably awful). Also, we’re a paltry two-hour train ride from home (well, to London at least), the beer and food are heaps better, there’s a trendy international, multi-lingual vibe, loads of cultural stuff to enjoy, clubs to join – the works. Sure, the bureaucracy is time-consuming and shops are shut on Sundays (inconvenient, yet economical) but overall we know we’re onto a good thing.
In spite of my love for Guy Fawkes celebrations – and deep-seated belief that fireworks can only be enjoyed on freezing cold, autumnal evenings – I have to admit that this country’s refusal to mark the occasion doesn’t distress me for longer than a few days each year. If it’s the only time I genuinely feel foreign in Belgium, I suppose I should count my blessings.
Perhaps next year I’ll take a trip home for November 5th, and get all this Bonfire-Night angst out of my system.
By Catherine
Merkel battles for the euro, but her troops are restless
People may have questioned Chancellor Angela Merkel’s commitment to the European Union over recent years, but there is no denying the pivotal role which she is playing in defence of the euro. What a desperate battle she has to fight! The trouble is that her own battalions are deeply sceptical of her campaign.
The misgivings in Germany over any bail-out of Greece, Portugal or Italy already run deep (Ireland is making tangible progress in tackling the crisis), but Friday’s resignation of German ECB board member Juergen Stark has given them greater force. Everyone is saying that his departure stems directly from his objection to the ECB purchase of bonds from the weaker economies in order to safeguard their banks.
Stark couldn’t possibly comment, but his decision has much the same flavour as the resignation of Axel Weber as president of the Bundesbank earlier this year and the subsequent appointment of Italy’s Mario Draghi as head of the ECB from November. What’s more, Stark is a member of Merkel’s own party, the CDU.
The German constitutional court gave Mrs Merkel some comfort early last week, when it pronounced as legal the measures which have so far been taken to support the euro.
More threatening was the Court’s insistence that further measures must be subject to a formal vote in the Bundestag. That could potentially scupper the introduction of yet further measures to support the weaker eurozone member states, in particular the expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility to €440 billion, of which €211 billion would be committed by Germany. It almost certainly rules out the idea of eurozone bonds, a widely canvassed option for resolving the crisis, but one which would imply even greater German burden-sharing.
The future of Germany’s coalition government is now at risk of collapse if Merkel’s own party has too many defections over support for the euro, maybe even in advance of the 2013 elections.
Merkel’s approach is to stress the need for long-term measures, and she is adamant that treaty changes are needed to make the stability and growth pact legally binding and defensible in the European Court of Justice – yet another reminder that it was Germany and France which drove coach and horses through the pact in 2003. The Chancellor blames that failure on the Socialists, as she does the decision to allow Greece to join the euro in 2001before the country was ready. There is no way to avoid modifications to the treaty, she says, if the euro is to survive.
Negotiating proposals for treaty change will be a major preoccupation for eurozone ministers in the coming months, but it will be a difficult process, coming to fruition in 2013 or later, which is hardly the short-term solution that the markets are seeking.
British euro-sceptics, especially Conservative members of parliament, see any treaty revision as the perfect opportunity to argue for a watering-down of the UK’s commitments to Europe. It would be sad irony if the creation of the euro, such a powerful force for integration, should evolve into a weapon of disintegration.
Michael
10 things they don’t tell you at school
Moving to a new job can be daunting, especially if you’ve only really studied before and not spent any significant amount of time in a professional environment.
For myself and fellow interns at Fleishman-Hillard this year the transition from academic to professional life has been massive. To help you understand just where we are coming from I decided to write a last post with ten things that they didn’t tell us at school. ( The longer and less sanitized version produced the funniest email chain of the year and maybe made available if drinks are in the offing.)
- There is no such thing as 9-5. If you miss the start of your lecture at 9 the doors will close, In the office nobody minds what time you arrive. The spirit of professionalism is such that your dedication is assumed and you will be trusted from the beginning to work hard and cheerfully (and for those really late evenings the wii is on hand).
- You can be paid to travel. And the quality of hotel is much better than your average hostel.
- Royal weddings will be celebrated, as will all public holidays, cake competitions and birthdays.
- Language learning is a must. But I’m not talking about French or German- no I mean the massive list of acronyms unique to every sector that only the initiated can follow
- Stereotypes, whilst somewhat un-PC can be based in truth. With an office of 65 and many many nationalities you soon realise there is a reason why some are known for their efficiency and others their laid back lifestyle and woebetide you if you get this the wrong way round.
- Casual Friday. The best kept industry secret, closely followed by office nights out. Not only is socialising with your colleagues/bosses encouraged but you may be required as band groupies.
- Networking. A brilliant and beautiful concept. Taking people out for lunch (and maybe sharing some wine) is expected, and paid for. Particularly when clients come to town. And did I mention evening receptions…?
- Reading blogs and following Twitter is no longer counted as timewasting but a valuable part of being a super up to date on current affairs.
- No-one will understand what you do, learn quickly who really wants to know and who will be satisfied with ‘communications’ in order to avoid a bored audience as you explain the finite details of intricate political legislation.
- And somewhere along the road ‘they’, becomes we. Personally the last one took me back the most. When people first asked what I was doing for my placement year I happily told them about Fleishman and what they were up to in the Brussels bubble but gradually over the last ten months a change has occurred and suddenly I find myself talking about what we were doing, our latest project and how we are making a difference in political communications.
After seeing first-hand how hard it is to persuade employers to take that first leap of faith with new graduates I am even more grateful for the opportunities, encouragement and investment in our training that has been consistently on offer throughout this year.
Folks you will be missed,
Rosalyn
Dear Commissioner, signed 2.3 million people
Our client The Body Shop has, in conjunction with ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purpose) run a campaign to end the sex trafficking of children. The campaign has become a truly global phenomenon: the petition supporting it has amassed over 6 million signatures worldwide, with 2.3million of those from across Europe.
The handover of the Europe-wide petition to Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is taking place on June 28th at 11am at the Berlaymont. The petition want the European Commission to put pressure on Member States to speed up the implementation of the EU Directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting victims. Despite the gravity of the topic, previous handovers have been good fun with cheerful processions, colourful handprints and marches stopping the traffic to make their point heard (here are some of the highlights from previous handovers across Europe and some photos of the London handover where Lollipop men and women from across the country stopped traffic to demonstrate their support for the campaign. We are hoping there will be an even bigger sea of yellow at the Brussels handover!
Feel free to join on the day (reminder: 11 am in front of the European Commission’s Berlaymont building) and add your voice to the call for an end to the sex trafficking of children.
There is more information and other handover photos on the Brussels event’s FB page and photos of the event next week will be on flikr afterwards.
Hope to see you on Tuesday.
Rosalyn
FH’ers to contribute to Japan relief effort through a bit of friendly sport
Now that many of the European domestic leagues have drawn to a close, some fans may be enjoying a bit of football respite. But for those who crave a little more there is a chance to combine an entertaining football match with supporting a good cause.
Sweden FC, a Brussels based amateur team that includes some current and former FH’ers, together with the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the EU and the Mission of Japan, will stage a special exhibition match on 18 June to raise money for the victims of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The match, with kick off scheduled for 14.30 at the Stade Communal d’Ixelles, will pit Sweden FC Brussels against a Japanese team; attendees will be able to donate money and all contributions going to the Japanese Red Cross.
We hope to see as many of you there as possible for an afternoon of fun!
Claus
Going Dutch: does the internet split the difference between public affairs and government relations?
Koen Droste over at FH Amsterdam recently appeared in the Financieel Dagblad on the subject of the effect of the internet on lobbying. You can check out his take on what the internet means for the practice of public affairs and government relations here.
James
