EIT: How will it work?

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology, or EIT in Brussels-speak, is finally under way with the formation of its Governing Board and Executive Committee in late 2008. The organisation’s mandate is ambitious: To help make Europe a more innovative economy, through the creation of a series of research projects that link academia, industry and government, and that bring hot new products and services out of the lab and into the marketplace. But the EIT’s birth has been politically painful. The original notion, advanced by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in 2006, was to create a European answer to the famed US innovation embodied in such great technical institutes as MIT. But it hit a buzz saw of political opposition – not least from existing European universities. Now a pilot phase has been funded by the European Parliament, and in 2009 the EIT’s new board is scheduled finally to get to the main business at hand: Which research projects, in which sectors, will it pursue? How will it structure the projects? How will companies and university researchers get involved? How much money is on the table? These are among the topics to be discussed at this exclusive Science|Business Policy Bridge meeting. Guest speakers include two of the top EU officials responsible for the EIT’s development. The meeting, limited to 40 participants to ensure good networking, provides an opportunity for guests in academia, industry and policy to meet with these key officials, exchange views on the project and get the most up-to-date information possible on the programme and how to connect to it. In addition, Science|Business will publish an account of the discussion and of the policy proposals advanced by attendees. The Science|Business news service has been covering the EIT’s evolution closely since the project’s inception in 2006.