The fight for a European Institute

The political battle is joined. At a meeting on 24-25 March, European government leaders gave a lukewarm endorsement to the idea of creating a “European Institute of Technology” – a continental magnet for R&D to rival the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The plan, advanced by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, now goes to the back rooms in Brussels for more cooking; what will emerge next June is anybody’s guess.

So to help, Science|Business publishes a selection of viewpoints – from our interviews, e-mails to us, and public statements. Our Internet poll results, conducted over the past month, showed a split: 43 per cent were for it, but 28 per cent oppose it and another 30 per cent voted “not as proposed” (due to rounding, the numbers do not sum to 100). Clearly, there’s lots of political work to do.

First, a summary of the proposal:

The EIT would be a two-level organisation consisting of a central governing body, and a system of “knowledge communities” based at partner institutions. It would be funded jointly by the public and private sectors, and could be up and running by 2010. A budget of between €1 billion and €2 billion is foreseen over the institute’s first four years of operation, but the Commission hasn’t pinpointed where this money would come from.

The governing board would consist of leading scientists and people from the world of business and would decide on the strategy and the budget of the EIT and select and evaluate the knowledge communities. The knowledge communities would bring together departments of universities, companies and institutes to perform research, education and innovation activities in inter-disciplinary strategic areas.

The idea of creating a new European champion in R&D and technology transfer has been bubbling in Brussels for years. But Barroso says it’s now an idea “worth fighting for”, to “bring together the best brains and companies and disseminate the results throughout Europe”. Not all agree.

Georges Haour, Professor of Technology & Innovation Management at IMD, Switzerland, and partner of Generics, in Cambridge, UK

For the EIT, we need a new institution as much as a bullet in our heads. European universities constitute a remarkably diverse array of outstanding institutions of good general quality. They should indeed be reformed to be continually adapted and improved, while concentrating on excellence in teaching and excellence in research. In this way, Europe will increasingly attract students from China and India. Indeed, the issue is not that Europeans go to the USA; the problem is that Europe is not attractive to non- European talent.

We need to much better exploit the gold mine of competences and research activities in existing European universities and public R&D. This means leveraging the existing array of institutions for business innovation fully in a pan-European way, somewhat like the Framework Programmes have achieved in the technical arena.

Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament, and now managing partner of European Integration Solutions, a Washington and Brussels consulting firm

Barroso’s intention is to create a centre of European excellence - but not only have it at a centralized institution. I think it’s a light touch rather than heavy-handed institution-building that could have some relevance.

My take is this is not a stage for which we should have lots of European talk. We need adoption and delivery - but not in five years still contemplating our navels and debating the Lisbon Strategy. I think this Commission decided to do its part. This is one of the explanations for why the EIT idea emerges.

The critical issue for Europe with or without the institute of technology is that we are lagging in an area, though we have the human potential to be a leader. We have a number of states, predictably the Scandinavian and especially the Finns whose research capacity is in fact in the world’s leading scale….I have one regret about this. The states who argue they want more European R&D refuse to give the budget of resources to deal with the things that they say they need.

Statement from the League of European Research Universities

An EIT is a diversion that fails to address any of these key priorities. A single EIT will not deliver significant benefit across Europe, whilst a networked EIT will lack

the attribute that makes a university such as MIT so powerful: the capacity to reconfigure to respond to the changing research agenda. Both models militate against competition, will be unable to deliver the short and medium term benefits sought, are narrow and unimaginative in scope and are of doubtful sustainability.

It is perverse to contemplate a new institution of doubtful utility when Europe already has a spectrum of powerful research-intensive institutions, from which, with appropriate competitive funding, there is the potential to create the cohort of internationally leading universities throughout its regions that Europe needs.

Chris Patten, chancellor of Oxford University and former European Commissioner (from an interview in the Financial Times.)

Europe already has one or two institutions which do as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and many more of which would be able to do so if they were better funded.

Elmar Husmann, managing consultant, IBM Business Consulting Services

IBM feels very skeptical about that. Mainly because we think in Europe there are already some centres of excellence. What has happened is the EIT will be virtualized, and we don’t think a virtual organization is going to work. I think the better way is to build on the existing universities.

Carl Johan Sundberg, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet, and Investment Manager, Karolinska Investment Fund (and a member of the Science|Business Advisory Board)

It’s always very interesting when politicians are interested in science and technology. However to build something like an institution in Strasbourg or in some other places when there is a need for structural changes or supports is the wrong way.

We already have ETH, we have Cambridge, we have Chalmers, we have Munich. Somehow they are naive of what MIT is doing. It’s a very complex system. They are politicising it instead of investing where you have growth.

Jeannet Harpe, Corporate Communications, Philips

We welcome initiatives and support to strengthen the European technology base. We are of the opinion that the most effective way is to base it on and leverage existing activities in universities, companies and institutes by supporting and better coordinating these activities.... In order to become a knowledge-based society it is of utmost importance to bundle the competencies of the various institutions across boarders and stakeholders. This initiative can be a major step forward to achieve that goal.

Friedrich Bornikoel, managing partner for IT group, TVM Capital

I think it could be a good idea but it’s not a magic one. It won’t do the trick by itself. It needs a lot influences from different parties to get educated.

Spokesman for the permanent representations to the EU, United Kingdom

We haven’t seen very much of the details. We very much look forward to seeing a formal proposal. What the U.K. will be very keen on is not that we end up sort of focusing on the brick and mortar building but rather we develop a network that is based on experts.

Timo Haapalehto, a councillor for the Finnish permanent representative to the EU

Our position is that we would like to see the Commission’s proposal first. The paper that they published raises many questions. But the basic analysis seems to be correct that some actions are needed.

Leo Petrus, Chief Scientist, Bio-Science, Shell Global Solutions

European cooperation and European framework are difficult to work with. I am just wondering how much the administrative burden of this will be and how effective it will be - and I simply don’t know.

Position paper from the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry

European Chambers are not convinced of the need for an EIT in the conventional sense. The only added value would be in the integration of knowledge, commitment and power of world class researchers AND enterprises.

Should there be an EIT, the European Chambers are in the opinion that its primary focus must be on improving the commercial exploitation of research within an integrated approach of teaching, research and technology transfer.

Gunnar Hökmark, Head of the Swedish Delegation to the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, in a letter to the Financial Times.

The idea of a European Institute of Technology is neither new nor bad. It is not good enough as long as the main problem of European research and science is the lack of funding rather than the lack of institutions.

It might be wiser to develop those of our present European institutes of technology that are in a lead position rather than financing a new one, developing a new structure, new networks, new reputation and a new academic culture.