Brussels agrees funding for EIT

The European Union inched closer to creating a European Institute of Technology this week, when ministers from the 27 national governments agreed to dedicate up to €308.7 million from the Union’s coffers to the project.

The EIT, brainchild of European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, is intended to spur innovation in the way the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has in the US.

The aim is for the EIT to carry out high-level research, education, and innovation activities by bringing together companies and existing universities and research institutes to cooperate within networks known as Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).

At the meeting in Luxembourg on Monday the government ministers agreed that climate change and renewable energy should be two of the first priority subjects for the KICs in the institute’s first three years of existence.

If these projects are successful the European Commission and the EIT’s Governing Board will then draft a so-called Strategic Innovation Agenda, setting out how the institute should expand its activities into other areas thereafter.

Funding fights

Funding has been the main bone of contention. Some countries including the UK wanted to pare back the launch budget to €200 million.

Members of the European Parliament, meanwhile, don’t want the EIT to use up existing EU funds allocated for other ongoing projects, arguing that the project financing should come from new money.

The Parliament won’t debate the EIT proposal until the autumn, but its Industry, Research and Energy Committee is due to give its opinion on 26 June.

Annette Schavan, Germany’s research minister, chaired the meeting on Monday. She said that agreeing on the €308.7 million start-up budget will send an important signal to the private sector, which politicians hope will play an important role in funding the EIT.

"I think a clear figure is important here if we are to mobilise funding from the private sector in Europe," she told journalists after the meeting.

Many companies have offered verbal support to the EIT project but none has yet put its hand in its pocket to help finance the launch.

In addition to agreeing an initial budget, ministers also agreed that all official EIT documents and publications should be translated into all official languages of the Union.

Spain and Italy expressed concern that English, the dominant language of global science, would become the de facto language if the EIT’s governing board has its way.

It was false to say that using all the EU’s languages would be costly and burdensome, Spain said.

Ministers agreed that official documents and publications of the EIT should be available in all EU languages, with the understanding that other documents such as scientific papers need not be.