Negotiators from the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached an interim agreement on Thursday 28 January, following a fourth interinstitutional meeting (trilogue), on two texts relating to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT): a revision of the regulation that established the EIT, on the one hand, and a decision regarding its strategic programme for 2021–2027, on the other.
The first text aims to bring the EIT Regulation in line with Horizon Europe, which is the European Research Framework Programme 2021–2027 (see EUROPE 12621/10).
More specifically, it introduces changes of a financial nature. This is because the EIT’s primary mission is to provide grants to eight ‘knowledge and innovation communities’ (KICs) – communities involving higher education institutions, research institutes and businesses.
The EIT’s budget for the next seven years is set to rise to €2.9bn (at current prices), or 3% of the total EU research budget.
The text adopted on Thursday provides for the granting of these funds to the KICs to be governed by new mechanisms. The latter, which is established by the EIT, should be based on the performance of the KICs. This is in order to “enhance their capacity to attract other investments and to finance their activities independently of the EIT’s contributions” said the EU Council in a statement.
In addition, the continuation of existing KICs will be subject to an overall evaluation and a group of Member State representatives will be consulted on decisions that are deemed strategic, such as the extension of partnership agreements with the KICs, for example.
Several MEPs have also welcomed the fact that the negotiators have succeeded in simplifying the administrative operation of the EIT. In particular, grant agreements between the EIT and the KICs will no longer be on an annual basis, but multi-annual.
“After visiting a number of KICs in my home country, the Netherlands, I discovered the current yearly model has been burdensome and impractical for the KICs”, said the rapporteur for the ECR group, Robert Roos, on welcoming the development.
Strategic programme
To complement this revised legislative framework, the negotiators therefore agreed on the new EIT Strategic Innovation Agenda (SIA).
Among other things, this requires the KICs to become more inclusive and transparent, and to clarify the EIT’s relationship with the KICs after the end of the partnership agreements.
In addition, it defines the eligibility criteria and budget for activities carried out under of the Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) – a programme for EU Member States and associated countries considered to be “modest or moderate” innovators.
Finally, the new SIA provides for a simplified procedure for launching a new KIC in 2022 or 2023 in cultural and creative fields, and another one dedicated to water, marine and maritime sectors and ecosystems in 2026.
The eight existing KICs are dedicated to digitalisation, health, food, urban mobility, climate, energy, manufacturing and raw materials. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)