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Un institut européen comblerait-il le fossé technologique?

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Publié 28 mars 2007 - Mis à jour 28 mai 2012
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Technology
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Au cours d'un débat organisé par les Amis de l'Europe, le président de la Commission, José Manuel Barroso, a exprimé sa confiance sur la capacité de l'Institut européen de la technologie à obtenir le soutien des Etats membres et à relier les trois côtés du "triangle de la connaissance, à savoir l'enseignement, la recherche et l'innovation".

Commission President Barroso defended his innovation flagship during a Crossfire debate at Friends of Europe on 26 March. He underlined that the innovation gap with the US is closing, but also pointed to remaining weaknesses such as fragmentation of the EU's innovation potential, the lack of top-class excellence and low involvement of business in education and research. "For too long, the 'knowledge triangle' education-research-innovation has been disconnected," Barroso said.

The Commission president also pointed to the need for the private sector to support the EU's European Institute for Technology, citing good practices of the debate's sponsor Shell in the area of education and research (Jet-Net, hydrogen technology platform and Shell's Eco-Marathon). Barroso felt confident that he now has the full support of the German EU Presidency for the EIT and that adoption of the EIT regulation should be possible before the end of 2007.

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Shell CEO Jeroen van de Veer focused the debate on the issue of innovations for energy security and the fight against climate change. Starting from a realistic assessment of energy consumption in the future (50% growth in the next 20 years), van de Veer made three key observations:

  • Europe needs to create a mutual energy dependence with Russia, to provide security of supply and give Russia "security of demand"; 
  • Europe needs more co-operation and more co-ordination in the energy field, and also "more regulation", said van de Veer, raising a few eyebrows of the Commission President, who is the champion of "better regulation", and; 
  • the energy challenge is one of "three Cs" (clean, cheap and convenient) but it is impossible to satisfy all three requirements. "There are no ideal solutions," stated the Shell CEO.

Sociologist and member of the European Research Council  Manuel Castells saw the innovation gap as a problem with institutions rather than finance. "There is no minister of education in the US. Does it help? Probably yes," he joked. 

German MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis congratulated the Commission president on the EIT proposal and underlined the need for European lead markets.

And Dutch Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics Gerardus 't Hooft   drew attention to the fact that Europe has excellent research (such as in his own area of high-energy physics) but that it suffers from an inferiority complex towards the US. But the "glamour of science and research" has eroded and "people also often see the bad side-effects of science", said the Dutch professor. 

In the ensuing debate, issues were raised such as the need for a World Institute for Technology because the energy and climate-change challenges are global and cannot be solved within one region alone. "Yes," said Barroso, "but we need to start at home".

Paul de Clercq of Friends of the Earth criticised Shell's record on promoting education and research, demanding more commitment from the company in the area of renewables. Jeroen van de Veer responded by highlighting that his company is one of the leaders among oil companies in R&D on renewables but "it does not make sense to invest billions in something that is too expensive".

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Contexte : 

Innovation is the key challenge of the EU's revised Lisbon Agenda for growth and jobs. Although Europe has excellent researchers, it does not always succeed in exploiting the results of their work. To unlock the EU's potential for innovation, in 2005 the Commission proposed to establish a European Institute for Technology (EIT), but the proposal was not greeted with enthusiasm by the research community or the private sector (which was supposed to provide most of the funding for the EIT). For more information on the history and positions of different actors on this issue, see EurActiv article "European Institute of Technology - against all odds?" (08/03/2007).

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