Sustainability and resilience through transformative innovation policy, at national and regional level

The European Green Deal (EGD), introduced in December 2019 by the European Commission as Europe’s Growth Plan, aims to make Europe climate-neutral, resource-efficient, socially inclusive, and innovative. The UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is a pledge to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development on a global scale by 2030, considering three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social, and environmental. The two frameworks share common objectives, one being the need for Innovation Policies to support transformations required to address current global challenges, like the Climate Crisis and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we describe the interdependence between innovation policy and Agenda 2030’s implementation, in line with Europe’s vision for Industry 5.0, and we demonstrate how funding mechanisms like the Next Generation EU recovery package, can support countries in becoming more resilient through Green and Digital Transformations.