Budget rise mooted despite harsh external review
The European Institute for Innovation and Technology has requested €4 billion from the 2014-20 EU budget, which was released on 29 June.
But an interim evaluation has slammed the young institute’s track record—and considerable uncertainty remains over its future role and status. The evaluation, released on 16 June, criticised the institute’s lack of openness, and its failure to engage with other policy tools since its creation in 2008.
The study, paid for by the European Commission and carried out by external consultants, says that the EIT has been overzealous in demonstrating how different it is from other instruments and institutions, instead of seeking to complement them.
The evaluators add that this has endangered the institute’s accountability. “We are surprised by the limited level of consultation undertaken by the EIT in the development of its draft Strategic Innovation Agenda. This is not in the spirit of openness and transparency,” they say.
Originally promoted as Europe’s answer to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, the EIT is now putting more emphasis on seed investment for small companies. In its draft Strategic Innovation Agenda, released on 17 June, the EIT defines itself as an institute that “encourages, seeds and enables existing European education, research and business hotspots to form entrepreneurial and excellence driven innovation clusters—its Knowledge and Innovation Communities.”
According to the strategic agenda, it aims to “step up the 25 per cent investment funding by a factor of about two per KIC per year, leading to a cumulative budget of about €4 billion for the period 2014-20,” up from €309 million for 2008-13. The institute aims to increase its number of KICs from three today to 10 or 12 in 2020.
Anders Flodström, vice-chairman of the EIT governing board and chairman of the working group in charge of drafting the strategy, told Research Europe that the EIT’s investment in the KICs and education activities are equally important. “It is not only about more innovation, but also about the people who do it and create businesses,” he argues. He says that the institute aims to have 500 to 600 students enrolled in EIT-labelled degrees in the autumn.
Xavier Prats Monné, deputy director general of the Commission’s directorate general for education, praised what he termed the institute’s results-oriented approach. “The EIT operates with a business logic…KICs are not a joint undertaking of people getting together to milk the cow of EU funding,” he told a conference called The EIT—What is its Future? at the European Parliament in Brussels on 30 June.
Fabrice Comptour, a member of the cabinet of education commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, told the conference that the Commission had made a “clear political choice” in shifting the EIT into the overall framework for research and innovation funding. That will require an alignment between the EIT’s priorities and that of the research directorate’s next Framework Programme, he said—even though the institute is supposed to remain independent. “The EIT has been first outside the Framework Programme because we wanted this flexibility, so we shouldn’t put it back in without preserving this,” he said.
But Jiri Burianek, director for competitiveness, industry and research at the Council of Ministers, told the conference that the EIT “should not be afraid to put its independence in danger” if doing so would make it more visible.
Flodström agrees that closer links with other EU bodies are necessary to meet the EIT’s goals. “We’re pragmatic,” he says. “We need a budget of €4bn and that’s easier to argue for if you’re closer to DG research.”
The Commission will submit a full budget proposal to the European Parliament and Council for approval by the end of the year. This will include a budget breakdown of the future research funding programme now known as Horizon 2020 and detailed plans for the EIT.