Portuguese MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho (EPP) announced today a package of amendments aimed at improving the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's (EIT) response capacity to the coronavirus crisis, in particular through the Health and Digital Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).
The amendments, presented to the members of the ITRE - Industry, Research and Energy - Committee, are included in the legislative report on the EIT's strategic agenda, to which the MEP is rapporteur, and will be submitted together with MEP Marisa Matias, who is in charge of the analysis on the regulations of that institution. These amendments have a wide support of the political families represented in the European Parliament.
“We respect the autonomy of the EIT and its KICs”, emphasized Maria da Graça Carvalho during a meeting of the ITRE Commission, “but we believe that in the present situation the introduction of specific targets may be beneficial. The health KIC can play an important role in the global effort that is taking place across Europe at this time for the development of a vaccine and therapies”, she illustrated.
As for Digital, she said, “this KIC has a very important role to play in the development of innovative solutions in the present situation. For working, learning, teaching, communicating, and also in the development of security tools for e-commerce ”.
Balance, Sustainability and Simplification
The legislative report on the “Strategic Agenda for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) 2021-27” introduces a set of amendments to the European Commission's proposal, which are based on three main principles: Balance, Sustainability and Simplification.
To achieve these objectives, measures are pointed out such as the valorization of projects with a greater geographic distribution of the participating entities, encouraging the participation of countries that do not yet have KICs, the valorization of collaboration with small and medium-sized companies and preferential treatment - when on equal terms in other aspects - of projects whose teams have better gender balance.
The simplification of administrative procedures and the creation of conditions that allow greater stability to KICs and the human resources involved in the projects are other proposals. Three billion euros is the budget foreseen for the EIT, in the 2021-27 period.