Will there ever be a 'European Institute of Technology' (EIT)? During a joint hearing of the European Parliaments Committees for Industry and Culture members were generally much in favor of the proposed 'Knowledge and Innovation Centre' but they expressed doubts on the legal and financial structures of the project.
'The EIT must give Europe's best universities, research centers and businesses an opportunity to come together,' said Jan Figel, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, 'because together we can make the difference'. The proposal is that EIT will have a two-level structure: a Governing Board which selects universities, research centers and businesses that will then form so-called 'Knowledge and Innovation Community' (KIC). Each of these KIC's will focus on a specific topic such as for example climate change or energy efficiency. Generally was agreed that in order to brand the EIT a special diploma is necessary to guarantee its visibility in- and outside Europe and to attract the best researchers.
'EIT is a proxy for the innovation gap in Europe', Mr. Horst Soboll of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) said frankly, ' Europe needs to do a bigger effort. Politicians have to stop the lip service and to take action'. The Finnish reporter of the EP's Industry Committee Mr. Reino Paasilinna (Socialist Group) stressed that 'innovation is the Achilles' heel of Europe. The EIT should therefore focus on the improvement of the EU's innovation capacities to renew Europe'. 'The EIT should address the EU's acute and foresee lack of engineers'; Willy Fuchs, President of the European Federation of Engineering Associations (FEAN) said, 'There is a need for education and vocational training for them. Only when we have enough excellent scientists and engineers we can develop successful innovative products and services'.
A different sound came from Kari Raivio of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), who called the European Commission’s analysis of the current situation as 'overly pessimistic and too generalized. The real difference between the two sides of the Atlantic is the money!, Where the USA spends over 300 billion Euros a year on research and development, European countries are legging behind. Only Germany with 60 billion and France with 40 billion Euros are relatively on the right track'.
The overall spending for the EIT is estimated with 2.3 billion Euros for the first 6 years (2008-2013). The 308 million Euros to be provided by the European Union would have to be taken from the reserve as the EIT has not been envisaged in the financial perspectives for this period. The 308 million Euros represent a minimum for the launch of a credible EIT, regarding to Commissoner Figel. The German liberal MEP Chatzimarkakis’ reaction was that the proposed financial structure still remains a 'black box'. He called on the Commission to have the guts to use for the EIT the surplus money, which was returned from the Member States to the EU budget at the end of last year!
