European Institute of Technology - against all odds?[fr][de] 

Since the idea was introduced by Commission President Barroso in February 2005, there has been much criticism about the European Institute of Technology (EIT). The Commission's initial plan, which proposed the construction of a single campus and suggested long-term commitments from academia and business, was rejected even by the Commission's own research advisory boards (EURAB).

In its first report, issued in April 2005, EURAB experts warned the Commission that a "world-class research institute cannot be created top-down" and stressed that "to succeed, the EIT will need to have the involvement of and full support from the business community from the outset and that the independency of the governing board has to be clearly established and protected". 

In March 2006, the EIT suffered a second blow, when the European Council dismissed the possibility of establishing the EIT on a new or existing single campus. Instead, the heads of state and government supported its establishment in the form of a virtual network of existing institutions, which obliged the Commission to somewhat water-down its original proposal and propose the final regulation (October 2006) following the European Council's advice.

The Commission's proposal is currently being discussed in two committees in the European Parliament (Industry and Research and Culture and Education) and in a special ad-hoc council working group organised and led by the German Presidency, which strongly opposes the whole project, and which is aiming for an agreement on only one "pet-KIC" to first test the concept before establishing a real EIT.

In a recent panel discussion on 6 February 2007, involving all three institutions and business representatives, both the Council and European Parliament and business representatives said that the Commission proposal needed further clarification on: 

• Financing: where is the €2.1billion going to come from?;
• the risk of overlap with existing structures (technology platforms, ERA-NET, joint technology initiatives, Eureka etc.) - do we really need an EIT?;
• concept of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (how will they operate?), and;
• the role of education, compared with research and innovation in the EIT's "knowledge triangle". If the focus of EIT is expected to be on innovation, why is an institute that awards degrees necessary?                          

These are crucial open questions and yet the German Presidency is determined to have Council's political orientations ready by July 2007 and the regulation adopted by end of the year 2007 for the decision on the first KIC to be taken by mid-2008 and the first KIC to be operational early 2009. 

"This is about Barroso wanting to leave a legacy to Europe. Nobody wants the EIT, but everybody knows it will happen. So, we will just need to try to make the best out of it," an academy representative told EurActiv. 

"Barroso is pushing the business really hard to get companies' backing for his proposal. Apparently this is something very important to him personally," commented a business representative, adding that in no way is the business going to sign a blank cheque for an institute that does not exist and the interest of which for business is not clear. "This kind of structure would be good, though, and as such business can support it but only once the final EIT is in place, and if the private sector sees that there is something interesting in it, it will decide on its participation and involvement in the EIT," added the business representative.

Asked whether the EIT proposal could be withdrawn, David White, formerly director in charge of the Commission's innovation policy and the leader of EIT discussions in the Council and Parliament, said:"My conviction is that we have a good proposal and that we are on the way towards success."

MEP Jerzy Buzek said that 50% of the Parliament does not support the idea of an EIT.

Wilfried Kraus, chairman of the Council's ad-hoc working group on EIT said: "There is no enthousiasm in the Council, but some optimism. We will find majority for the €300 million the EU's budget foresees for EIT's kick-off, but it is unclear where the rest (€2.1 billion) will come from. EIT is expected to deal with long-term issues, but business does not fund such things."

MEP Reino Paasilinna, rapporteur for the Parliament's Industry, Research and Energy Committee's report on EIT said "the EIT vessel is sailing on dangerous waters" and said he had asked himself whether EIT was only "yet another crazy idea from the Commission". He said that it is about "killing the process or living with it" and that he has decided to live with it - but first to change the proposal: "EIT is a plausible process. We want to contribute to Lisbon strategy goals and EIT is one of the actions. However, the Commission has not proved us that the EIT will not overlap with existing structures and I have decided to amend the proposal so that it will not overlap."

MEP Erna Hennicot-Schoepges, rapporteur of the Parliament's Culture and Education opinion report is more optimistic about the EIT and highlights the importance of "elite diplomas" that the EIT would award.

"The education side in the EIT is absolutely crucial. And currently there is no institution doing all this [research educaiton, innovation] in Europe," said David White. "There's a lot of misunderstanding about the diplomas. We're talking about perhaps 1,000 research students in one KIC. That's a lot of people, all of them highly applied in their training. The concern of the Commission is that the players in the KICs should influence the university content and content of PhDs. 

"It is crucial to take care that PhDs and masters coming out of the system are highly applied and relevant to industry as they will be picked up fast by industry - or start their own small businesses. This is what is happening around good technology universities and that is where innovation starts. It's the PhDs coming out of education who spin off, start small companies and innovate. Those companies are then picked up by large companies when they succeed. That's the mechanism of innovation. Big companies don't take the risks to innovate. They buy in successful innovation that they have watched developing in small companies," explained White.

BusinessEurope thinks that there is too much discussion on the EIT's structure and not enough on its content. "Content is much more important, let's get that solved first and then we can talk about structure. We need to know what we would get out of it," said Leif Kjaergaard, head of the BusinessEurope's working group on research and technological innovation. "EIT needs a lot of public money to provide a proof of concept, after which business can decide whether it will join."  

The European Industrial Research Management Association (EIRMA) questions whether, from a business perspective, the Commission's EIT proposal is the right proposal at the right time and highlights the need, first, for a university modernisation. "Please do not see this [EIT] as the only solution," said Andrew Dearing, secretary- general of EIRMA. He said that to innovate, business and markets need rules, standardisation and regulatory framework, and that there's clearly a role for governments and the Commission to help business with this respect, but "business doesn't have the money to fund infrastructures". He also said that more discussion was needed on the topics of KICs, and that energy and climate change should not be considered as a "too-easy choice".

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) thinks that the EIT should be an opportunity to build and develop the existing bottom-up networks of innovation across excellent business enterprises and universities - not top-down concrete or bureaucratic structures. "The current proposal for the EIT regulation is not clear on how the EIT would ensure excellence in choosing the KICs. Nor it is clear on which criteria the persons sitting in the governing board will be chosen. For the ERC, the choice was somewhat easier as scientific excellence could be proven. With regards the EIT, the criteria is not that simple," said LERU Secretary-General David Livesey. 

Bertil Andersson, outgoing chief executive of the European Science Foundation: "Personally, I think this may not be the best way to promote innovation in Europe. I think that creating more dynamic European research depends a lot on giving the universities more freedom to work with innovation. In many countries, universities are still too controlled and have a completely different entrepreneurial tradition compared, for example, with American universities."