The international high-level conference will be organised during the Finnish Presidency of the European Union Council in Helsinki in December 2019.The topic of the event is “Developing an Innovation-Friendly Legislative Culture – the Innovation Principle”. Today the pace of innovation is faster than ever. The process of preparing legislation does not necessarily match the rate of technological and digital change. The Innovation Principle seeks to ensure that regulation is designed in a way that creates the best possible ecosystem for the flourishing of innovation. The Innovation Principle thus contributes to creating a more innovation-friendly regulatory framework for the EU and, when used for national legislation, can signal the willingness of EU Member States to host and nurture innovators as well as to overcome situations of market failure. The conference aims to demonstrate that regulation can be used effectively and responsibly as a tool to pave the way for market-driven activities and innovations with the aim of providing high quality services to citizens according to objectives set for policies. The conference encourages to take a perspective that since all developments cannot be predicted, flexibility and new operating models are needed (e.g. new kind of PPPs including involvement of end users). The conference has four specific objectives: • To raise awareness and build shared understanding of the possibilities and challenges of regulation in creating markets for innovations and innovative business ecosystems in the European Union • To share experiences of forerunners and experiments in different fields both at the EU level and in the Member States • To identify key areas where regulation could be a major driver for innovation • To identify key policy questions to facilitate the use of Innovation Principle.

This proposal addresses the Work Programme 2018-2020 for Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy. In particular it addresses section “Support to the Finnish Presidency Conference on the European Strategic Technology Plan (SET-Plan) 2019” of the chapter “Transforming the Energy Sector Through Digitalisation” subchapter “Grants to Identified Beneficiaries”. The European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) was established to accelerate the transformation of the European energy system and to bring new low-carbon energy technologies to market. It identifies actions for research and innovation throughout the whole innovation chain. SET-Plan conferences offer an opportunity for decision-makers, researchers and stakeholders to get together and evaluate the progress made towards achieving the SET-Plan’s goals. The 13th SET-Plan Conference will take place on 13-15 November 2019 in Helsinki, Finland. The conference venue is the conference wing of the Finlandia Hall. The organisers of the conference are Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland (TEM), the Prime Minister’s Office of Finland (VNK), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (VTT) and the European Commission.

MIN-GUIDE is a project addressing the need for a secure and sustainable supply of minerals in Europe by developing a ‘Minerals Policy Guide’. The key objectives of the project are (1) providing guidance for EU and MS minerals policy, (2) facilitating minerals policy decision making through knowledge co-production for transferability of best practice minerals policy, and (3) fostering community and network building for the co-management of an innovation catalysing minerals policy framework. This will be achieved through a systematic profiling and policy benchmarking of relevant policy and legislation in Europe, which includes the identification of innovation friendly best practices through quantitative indicators and a qualitative analysis country-specific framework conditions, as well as through the compilation of minerals statistics and reporting systems. These insights will form the basis for developing an interactive, tailor-made online ‘Minerals Policy Guide’. Another key feature of the MIN-GUIDE project will be knowledge co-production for minerals policy decision makers through Policy Laboratories exploring these best practice examples along the whole mineral production value chain (exploration and extraction, processing, recycling and mine closure). Furthermore, MIN-GUIDE will facilitate the building of a sustainable minerals policy stakeholder network through this knowledge co-production and utilization in Policy Laboratories as well as through three major Conferences. These Conferences will explore the minerals governance framework, work on recommendations for promoting innovation along the whole minerals production value chain, and put it into the wider context of the circular economy. The MIN-GUIDE project and in particular the dissemination of the ‘Minerals Policy Guide’ to specific target audiences will have the expected impact of guiding EU MS and EU level minerals policy-making towards a more coherent, transparent and innovation-catalysing framework.