Causas EIT as a promoter of Innovation in Europe

Maria da Graça Carvalho hosted a special conference about the future of the EIT, taking into account that the outcome of the EIT independent evaluation was published on the first of June and based on this evaluation, the EIT board and the Commission will come up with the EIT Strategic Innovation Agenda in the near future. Also the open consultation on the future of the EIT had just come to a conclusion. The conference was organized by the Magazine Science and Business.

During her intervention, Maria da Graça Carvalho said that the discussion was an input for the Commission and the EIT board in their design of the SIA, and that before discussing the future of the EIT, it would be important to address the question of whether EIT is on track to achieve the objectives that it initially set itself.  These included the development of the EIT brand, the attraction of top class talents and funding from third parties, the production of research and innovation breakthroughs and so forth.  

Last March, Maria da Graça Carvalho was invited by the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou to co-create and chair the "Friends of EIT" group. The objective of this group is that a number of MEPs - from different political groups and different Committees - discuss the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's (EIT) future, creating a privileged interaction platform to exchange openly on the EIT and its future strategy.

In this quality Ms Carvalho said that there were a number of questions concerning the synergy between the EIT the FP and the CIP that remained to be clarified and that two problem areas stood out in particular. These were, firstly, the future areas into which the EIT was expected to expand (potential KIC themes); secondly, the inevitable, thorny question of the budget.  In the EU Parliament report on the future budget - something that had already been adopted in Plenary - the Parliament had called for an increased budget for the EIT.

Featured participants included Fabrice Comptoir - Office of the Commissioner for Education, Culkture, Multilinguism and Youth; Ronald de Bruin - Acting Director of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT);   Xavier Prats Monné - Deputy Director General for Education and Culture, DG Education and Culture, European Commission; Lucia Recalde Langarica - Head of Unit - European Institute of Technology, DG Education and Culture
European Commission; Jiří Buriánek - Director, DG C II, Competitiveness, Industry, Research & Information Society; General Secretariat of the Council of the EU - Alexander Von Gabain, Chairman-elect, EIT,  Chief Scientific Officer, Intercell AG; John Vassallo - Vice-President of EU Affairs, Microsoft; Karin Markides - President & CEO, Chalmers University of Technology; Elmar Dorner; Director SAP Research Karlsruhe, SAP AG; and Mary Ritter - CEO, Climate-KIC and Imperial College London.

The conference was held from 14h00 to 17h00 in the European Parliament.