The narrow focus on innovation in preparation for the next European Framework programme is steering environmental and health research in the wrong direction (Nature 473, 421; 2011).

Although these fields do not promise immediate economic growth, they are crucial drivers of innovation, focusing on complex socioecological systems, stimulating technological solutions and providing the basis for the sustainability of all innovations.

The European Union's (EU's) 2020 strategy brands the 'Innovation Union' as essential for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. This carries the risk that growth, competitiveness and innovation will be taken as ends per se, ahead of human well-being and sustainability. It is worryingly similar to the dominant approach before the economic crisis — one that led to unsustainable use of resources, crippling biodiversity loss and increased greenhouse-gas emissions.

Innovation is not an end, but a means to promote sustainability, human health and well-being. We must target European innovation discourse, policies and actions towards socially meaningful innovation. Technological and ideological lock-ins will not solve economic, societal and environmental crises. Sustainability requires transformation in all spheres (see http://go.nature.com/rmd44g).

This week in Brussels, the European Commission holds its conference on the Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation Funding. The European research policy is a powerful tool for shaping “an economy with a human purpose” (R. Passet Le Monde Diplomatique, February 2001). The EU should not pass up this historic opportunity.