EIT money starts to flow

Martin Schuurmans, the chairman of EIT’s governing board

This will allow the three winning bids, in the fields of climate change, sustainable energy, and the future information and communication society, to put in place organisation and management structures, and start moving towards becoming fully operational by the middle of the year, Martin Schuurmans, the chairman of EIT’s governing board, told Science|Business in an interview.

Schuurmans is not happy that the start-up grants for the new KICs will be signed slightly later than planned, but the reasons are not surprising: first the EIT has to find its own feet – it is, says Schuurmans, “an organisation that needs to get further organised.”

Secondly, and perhaps inevitably, the complexity of European Commission rules, by which the EIT is bound, “was maybe underestimated.” And the final factor was that the KIC participants themselves requested further discussions. These issues have been dealt with, at least for now.

The KICs, selected by the EIT on December 16, are co-located at several centres in Europe, and bring together industry and academics to work together, with the aim of becoming world experts in their respective fields.

“This is an experiment in itself,” Schuurmans said. He is keen to emphasise how this way of setting up research programmes across business, research and higher education is completely new. Inevitably, there will therefore be lessons to be learned.

Schuurmans, a former executive vice president at Philips Research/Philips Medical Systems, is keen to install a more business like attitude into the EIT. “Hopefully the next step - the annual grant - which will be signed by the summer, will be done a bit more smoothly,” he said.

The EIT itself is something of a curious organisation, being on the one hand an EU body subject to EU controls, and on the other hand having an independent governing board that is, as Schuurmans puts it, opportunity-driven with a desire to explore simplification and move quickly.

“We’re walking that fine line, and over time I think we will see very dramatic simplifications,” Schuurmans said.

As the first KICs start to get off the ground, the EIT finds itself in a period of transition following the appointment in autumn 2009 of its first director, Gérard de Nazelle, and an imminent move to new headquarters in Budapest.

The move is scheduled for April 1 and will initially involve de Nazelle and a team of 10, rising to 35 people by the end of the year and 50-60 in the long term.

The EIT will be closely monitoring the KICs, checking that they are implementing their business plans and delivering on the goals that they themselves set.

Whether or not the current KICs succeed will to a large extent determine what happens in a second round of calls, about which there is already great interest, according to Schuurmans.

“The momentum right now is enormous,” he said. “We are regularly being approached by people who would like to start a new KIC. They know this can only start in 2014, but they are already having meetings today.”

The institute’s funding is guaranteed until 2013, with renewal contingent on a positive vote from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Schuurmans is optimistic: “Initial successes will help us to secure new and perhaps even more elaborate funding for the next period.” What is key, in his opinion, is that the current KICs start to turn out positive results by the end of 2011, by which time they will have been up and running for a year and a half. By then he wants to be able to say: “The experiment has been successful.”