Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-138"

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"Mr President, it is a special pleasure for me to speak today, because Parliament’s best vice-president, Marek Siwiec, is leading the session and the distinguished Commissioner Ján Figel' is here, and because the subject is most interesting: creativity and innovation; although one could always ask, when discussing such matters, what creativity and innovation actually are. It often seems as if they are just words which do not appear to have a lot of content. If I had to answer the question of what creativity is, I know at least one answer, which the Finnish composer Sibelius is said to have given: he thought creativity was pain. Of course we have no fear of pain in Europe if it begets added value, something which takes us forward as a group of nations and in the context of Europe as a whole. As I see it, it is the main purpose behind this European Year: to bring some added value to the European reality. How do we promote creativity and innovation? As the President knows, your country, Poland, is to get the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. That is surely one factor in this area which is going to encourage the Member States of the European Union to create new added value and innovations using various incentives. We know, however, that it is not government decisions that bring about innovation or creativity. Whatever we decide here, they do not come about as a result of decisions. Instead, we need resources and the right prerequisites at universities, schools and in different sectors of our society, so that people can focus on creating something new and exchange best practices, and so that they can break free of the stereotyped thinking that prevents them from approaching things in a new way. This, I think, is a great challenge, because we all know that the education institutions in our own countries have in many cases developed as a result of traditions going back a long time. Certain traditions have been taught, a certain truth, but to some extent there is a need to question issues and examine them from a pluralistic angle. We need to realise that by being critical and by disagreeing, by challenging the paradigms and certain ‘truths’, we can succeed in creating new added value. I know that the Commissioner will certainly urge all the Member States to put forward national innovation strategies on how they will help students to think of new ideas or provide scope for new ways of thinking all the way from the early school years to university based on a programme of lifelong learning. This is an important issue, and I think that the main contribution that this European Year will make will be that creativity, innovation and new ways of thinking will become the core of the debate. Perhaps it will lead to innovation and new added value, and perhaps they will result in productisation, because the economy in the European Union is an important business. Thank you, Mr President."@en1
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