Brussels, 30/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - Europe must develop a culture of entrepreneurship, be less bureaucratic and concentrate its centres of excellence rather than dispersing its efforts. This is the gist of the message sent out on Wednesday morning by Martin Schuurmans, the chairman of the governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), who came to report back on the initial activities of the Institute before the committee on industry, research and energy of the European Parliament.
The EIT started work on 15 September 2008. The call for proposals on Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) was closed on 27 August this year and two or three KICs could be in place by the end of the year for implementation in 2010. The seven-year framework agreement on KICs will be signed in the second half of 2010, which will mean that all of the corresponding subsidy for the first year of functioning will be released, Mr Schuurmans said. From the point of view of funding, the fact that the EIT's funding of the activities of the KICs has been limited to 25% will considerably increase the commitment (75% of stakeholders).
The chairman of the governing board of the EIT sketched out a somewhat mixed picture of the state of play in research and innovation in Europe. Europe is not investing enough in these niches which are vital for economic development: even if Europe manages to fulfil to the Lisbon objective, which lays down the figure 3% of GNI for R&D expenditure, which it is not doing at the moment, this will still be below the investment commitment currently being made by the United States, China and India. The Member States are still dragging their feet when it comes to applying the reforms needed, but they absolutely must carry them out, Mr Schuurmans warned, because "whilst we are talking, China is acting!" And yet the European Union has excellent centres of innovation which should be networked to complement each other to develop synergies, within a simple and unburdened structure. It is on this kind of model that the KICs will be created, with their stakeholders located reasonably close together to permit effective collaboration. Greater freedom should also be given to innovation and research, which are excessively controlled and regulated in Europe. In the view of the chairman, a happy medium must be found, in which people are accountable, but in which the KICs are free to depart from the beaten track with the collaboration of universities and industry, in other words creating synergies between the three main players in the triangle of knowledge. Despite the fact that the OECD has published reports listing between 100 and 200 factors of innovation which are vital for businesses to succeed, none of them in Europe fulfil these criteria, Mr Schuurmans pointed out. He recommends that when the KICs are put into place, the "vital factors" on which they need to work are chosen. Businesses must support the projects, but they are struggling to create new initiatives because any kind of instruction in entrepreneurship is missing from European education. Although European education is excellent, it educates future employees and not future entrepreneurs, there is not enough "on-the-job training", the chairman of the European Institute continued. "Without this, the KICs are doomed to failure", he warned. Higher education must act as a catalyst to train businesspeople who are capable of creating new types of businesses, managed in a culture of high-performance and focusing on results. Another piece of advice: Europe needs to find different ways of innovating, rather than just focusing on inventions, which are just one facet of innovation. "We know where the challenges lie, we just need to roll our sleeves up (...). Today, we need to act, we need results", Martin Schuurmans concluded.
Among the very many questions and comments from the floor, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (ALD, Germany) stressed the speed with which these results must be achieved. The Green Philippe Lamberts (Belgium) congratulated Mr Schuurmans on the model he had presented and on the choice of the action priorities of the KICs, which will focus in particular on sustainable energy and the challenges of climate change. Adam Gierek (S&D, Poland) expressed concern at the lack of attractiveness of scientific careers in higher education and Patrizia Toia (S&D, Italy) spoke of an adequate targeting of expenditure towards key projects to balance out the lack of investment in innovation. (I.L./trans.fl)