Brussels, 08/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which has now been running for four years, is an exceptional initiative to boost the European Union's innovation capacity and nurture the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. This is why it needs to be given adequate resources so as not to endanger its future development, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Androulla Vassiliou stated at the opening of a conference for stakeholders in Larnaca (Cyprus) on 8-9 November. “I call on the heads of state and government to invest seriously in growth enhancing measures such as the EIT, and not to cut investment in Europe's human capital, which is still our comparative advantage on the global stage”, Vassiliou said, in view of the negotiations on the next multiannual financial framework.
Until recently Europe's innovation policies were structured around the idea that massively investing in research would automatically lead to innovation. Yet despite excellent research and dynamic companies, Europe is flawed by a lack of innovative projects and is still falling behind its global competitors. Investment in excellence and innovation is needed, and excellence and innovation can only come to life through the academic channel, Vassiliou said. This missing link - the “education dimension” - has been taken into account by the Knowledge and Innovative Communities (KICs) set up by the EIT, which create knowledge triangles (education-research-innovation).
“For innovation to surge, human capital and the creative potential existing within our universities need to be put back at the very centre of the innovation cycle. Ultimately, people are at the heart of innovation”, Vassiliou said. For the next 2014-2020 funding period, the European Commission proposes to significantly strengthen the EIT's role as an institute at the service of Europe. In order to do this, it proposes consolidating the three current KICs (InnoEnergie - in the field of sustainable energy; Climate - in the field of climate change; and EIT ICTLabs - which deals with questions on the information society and communication) so that they can serve as a model for new KICs and compete on a global scale, and the Commission also proposes creating new KICs that can address current economic and societal challenges. For the creation of the new KICs the Commission envisages six fields of action that it considers the most promising. The programme the Commission proposes would consist of two phases: (1) the creation of three new KICs in 2014 in the fields of health and demography (focusing in particular on active ageing and healthy living), food security and sustainable access to raw materials; (2) at a later stage, three other KICs would be created in the field of added-value manufacturing, urban mobility and smart secure societies. In order to make a success of this ambitious project, the Commission has proposed a budget of €3.19 billion for the next 2014-2020 financial framework. “This investment is crucial. Without it, the ability to attract the right partners from higher education, research and business would be greatly diminished”, Vassiliou says. By 2020, the objective of the EIT will be to create 600 start-up companies and support 10,000 Master's students and 10,000 PhDs focused on science and entrepreneurship. (IL/transl.fl)