Kick-starting research

The European institute of innovation and technology (EIT) is about to explore new cooperation models in the triangle of science, education and industry that have not existed up to now in Europe. It is not reinventing the wheel, it is improving it, building on what exists and the experience gathered to go further. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?

You might argue that there are already plenty of European initiatives bringing together different stakeholders to do just that, and go on quoting technology platforms, joint technology initiatives or the European networks of excellence. Correct. But the EIT goes further. None of these initiatives combines the three elements of the knowledge triangle, namely innovation, research and education. The existing initiatives focus on one or two of those, never on the three.

The parliament, council and commission have done their best to set up an institute, innovative in both form and content that can help bridge the gap between research and innovation in Europe and to prevent it turning into a bureaucratic white elephant, dominated by politics rather than by R&D. By now it is time for us politicians to leave the stage and let academia, business and real innovators take over. No current initiatives can help put Europe back on the world’s research and innovation map; the EIT can. It can become a flagship for excellence and the EU needs such a flagship.

There is a very simple reason why the focus of the EIT should be on innovation; the EU is not very good at it. We produce some of the best research in the world, but often do not know how to capitalise on our knowledge.

Lack of innovation is the EU’s Achilles’ heel and that is why my report on the EIT emphasises the role of innovation. The final result is not perfect, since budget margins for certain community funding instruments did not remain untouched, but it has to be remembered that the budget deal was part of a larger compromise package that included the Galileo satellite programme.

It would be pointless to deny that the EIT overlaps with certain existing community instruments, such as the competitiveness and innovation programme and the framework programme for research. However, I believe that there is still room for a new community R&D instrument, especially because of the innovation gap that persists between us and some of our main rivals. The EIT will bring added value to the European field of innovation, education and research but only a pilot phase and an evaluation will tell us if the model is good enough to have a permanent place in the European research area.

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