[A2k] EP gives green light for European Institute of Innovation and Technology

[Michelle Childs]

EP gives green light for European Institute of Innovation and Technology
Research and innovation - 11-03-2008 - 11:58
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) will be able
to start operating this summer, after the Council's common position on
its establishment was officially approved by the European Parliament.
The common position was reached after negotiations with the
Parliaments' rapporteur Reino Paasilinna (PES, FI), who was satisfied
with the compromise, which took on board most of the points raised by
Parliament in first reading.

The European Parliament voted by a large majority against an amendment
to reject the Council Common Position from the Greens/EFA group.

"The agreement with Council represents a success for Parliament", said
Mr Paasilinna, adding that "the compromise stresses the role of
innovation. Innovation is  where we really have to catch up: too
often, our brilliant students and researchers do not reap the rewards
of their work simply because there is no one to help them turn
research results into commercial products."

"Knowledge and Innovation Communities" of universities, research
organisations and businesses

The EIT will have a two-tier structure, in which a Governing Board
selects higher education institutions, research organisations,
companies and other stakeholders to form  autonomous partnerships
called "Knowledge and Innovation Communities" (KICs). Every KIC should
consist of at least three partner organisations, situated in at least
two different Member States and including at least one higher
education institution and one private company. Universities which take
part in a KIC are encouraged to add an EIT label to the degrees and
diplomas they awarded.

First KICs on climate change, renewable energy and next-generation ICTs

Within eighteen months after the EIT is established, a first set of
two or three KICs will be selected "in areas that help the European
Union to face current and future challenges", such as climate change,
renewable energy and the next generation of information and
communication technologies.

Further KICs will then be selected after the adoption of the first
"Strategic Innovation Agenda" (SIA), which is the "policy document
outlining the priority fields of the EIT for future initiatives". The
EIT must draw up an SIA by mid-2011 at the latest and every seven
years thereafter. Parliament and the Council shall then adopt this
agenda, acting on a proposal from the Commission.

Community to contribute =80308.7 million

The Commission estimates that the institute will need an overall
budget of =802.4 billion for the first six years, to be funded from a
combination of private and public sources. On 18 December 2007 the EP
and the Council agreed to revise the Multi-Annual Financial Framework
2007-2013 in order to ensure funding for Galileo and the EIT and to
provide =80308.7 million from the Community budget for the EIT.

Next steps

The Commission set up a four-strong identification committee early in
February which is to nominate the 18 experts for the EIT's first
Governing Board within about four months.

The European Council will then take a decision on where the EIT's
governing body will be located. During the debate in Parliament some
MEPs proposed Strasbourg, the Polish city of Wroclaw, the Hungarian
capital Budapest or the Austrian capital Vienna as possible seats for
the EIT's governing board.


REF.: 20080307IPR23292
---------
Michelle Childs
Head of European Affairs
Knowledge Ecology International
michelle.childs@keionline.org

"The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have
done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of
thinking at which we created them=94  Albert Einstein