The European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) unveiled plans for a second generation of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), as it set out its main priorities for the post-2013 EU funding period.
Future themes could include added-value manufacturing, the ageing population, biotechnology, food for the future, healthy childhood, human learning and learning enhancements, security and safety, and smart cities.
The list is a springboard for discussion. “It’s a first starting point,” said EIT Chairman Martin Schuurmans “There will be other suggestions and many questions about what is needed to make an idea KIC-able,” he told ScienceBusiness.
Over the European Union’s next budget cycle from 2014 – 2020 the EIT suggests launching a small number of new KICs in 2014. If they are successful it will set up others, possibly in 2016 and 2018.
To fund this, the EIT will seek an increase on the €309 million it received from the EU for the 2007-2013 period. “But we want to stay lean,” Schuurmans said. “We are a seed investor that catalyses new fields, rather than a subsidy giver.” The EIT contributes up to 25 per cent of the total cost of each project, with the remainder of the funding coming from the participants.
Research ministers get overview of EIT
The future direction of the Institute was under much discussion last week, both at the conference in Budapest where the EIT outlined its ambitions, and at an informal meeting of the EU’s Competitiveness Council in the same city, where EIT chairman-in-waiting, Alexander von Gabain, gave national research ministers an overview of the EIT’s vision.
The conference on ‘The EIT’s Vision for the Future’ brought together representatives from industry and academe to discuss the Strategic Innovation Agenda setting out the EIT’s main priorities up to 2020.
Since its launch in 2008, the EIT has overseen the creation of three KICs - in climate change, energy and information technology - with a brief to come up with new ways for industry and academe to work together in cross-border projects. The existing KICs are the only ones foreseen under the current budget, which runs until the end of 2013.
A new model for collaboration
KICs have had to break new ground in establishing their model for collaboration, for example having to devise a legal structure that fits the brief of co-locating activities in several countries. Their set-up has not been free of teething problems, with delays in getting the money flowing and agreements signed. As of the start of this year, however, all three are fully up and running.
“My priorities one, two and three are to start to show in 2011 and 2012 results from the KICs,” said Schuurmans, who is bowing out as president of the EIT in September. He added that the initial small successes such as summer schools and the founding of small companies by some of the students “need to be enlarged” and lead to the creation of new products, services and businesses, as well as entrepreneurially-minded people.
Schuurmans sees the EIT as “a small, engaged seed investor” that he hopes will help bring about “really important innovative hubs” to rival the best in the US or China. In the future some of the KICs might fail, creating space for others. “This is the seed investor game you need to play,” he said. If a KIC, or possibly one of its co-locations, disappears, this should not be perceived as a failure. “It’s not a problem. It’s normal with an investment portfolio. We should learn to look at it in this way,” Schuurmans said.
Independence is critical
The success of the EIT is dependent on significant independence and freedom from some EU financial rules to deal with the demands of fast-pace innovation and dynamic entrepreneurship. Any steps to rein that in would be met with resistance. The European Commission’s recent Green Paper on research funding after 2013 proposed bringing all the research the EU funds, including the EIT, under a single umbrella, or Common Strategic Framework.
“The EIT needs to be part of the Common Strategic Framework because the framework stands for research and innovation. Next to keeping a strong link with higher education, the EIT also needs to keep its operational autonomy and the governing board its decision-making autonomy,” Schuurmans said. “As an engaged seed investor, we need a form of independence to be successful.”
The EIT will spend the coming weeks refining its draft Strategic Innovation Agenda to take into consideration the ideas discussed in Budapest. The Institute will then present the agenda to the Commission by the start of June. To back this up, the Commission last week launched an online consultation on the future strategy for the EIT. The results of the consultation, which will remain open until 30 June, will also feed into the Strategic Innovation Agenda, which will then move on to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers for approval.
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
Follow where the public and private R&I money is going and which collaborative opportunities you can pursue.
