A society’s ability to create and exploit knowledge is a key factor for progress and growth. A society based on knowledge needs competitive research and education infrastructure, innovation supporting and facilitating institutions, and high performing information and communication technologies. These framework conditions differ remarkably throughout the Danube Region but remain, overall, below the level of EU27.

 Targets could be, for example:

• To invest 3% of GDP in Research and Development by 2020;
• To increase the number of patents obtained in the Region by 50%;
• To increase the share of the EU population aged 30 – 34 with tertiary or equivalent education to 40 percent by 2020.

 By 2020, all citizens of the Region should enjoy better prospects of higher education, employment and prosperity in their own home area. The Strategy should make this a truly 21st century region, secure and confident, and one of the most attractive in Europe.

 However …

The Region encompasses the extremes of the EU in economic and social terms. The Strategy reinforces Europe 2020, offering the opportunity to match the capital-rich with the labour-rich, and the technologically-advanced with the waiting markets, in particular through expanding the knowledge society and with a determined approach to inclusion. Marginalised communities in particular should benefit. One third of the EU’s population at risk of poverty lives in the area. Roma communities suffer especially from social and economic exclusion, spatial segregation and sub-standard living conditions. Efforts to escape these have EU-wide effects, but the causes must be addressed first in the Region.