Universities, researchers and businesses from outside Europe "are not out of the game," said Bálint Magyar, a former minister of education and current member of the Hungarian Parliament, as he revealed operational details of the EIT, the EU's pet project for boosting research and innovation in its 27 member states, in the interview.
But he added that the main focus of the future Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) would be in Europe and their actors would "have to be European".
KICs are the main operational blocs of the EIT and are expected to integrate the EU's fragmented research, education and innovation efforts. They are set to bring together departments of universities, companies and research institutes to perform education and innovation activities in inter-disciplinary strategic areas.
Climate change, renewable energy and the next generation of information and communication technologies (ICT) have featured among the planned focus areas for KICs. But Magyar noted that the three provisional thematic priorities could be modified according to needs.
"The Governing Board has full autonomy to confirm, to modify or to change these topics to some other ones. This is a question for the next period. We have to work out which major topics are worthwhile for forming the first KICs, and we have to determine the extent to which we have to focus within these topics," he said.
As for the structure of the new EU institute, Magyar revealed that it will employ 60 people, the number considered "optimal" by the Commission.
He also noted that no fixed physical location had yet been designated for the institute in its host city, Budapest. A decision on where this "3,000 m2" building will be located would be taken later, he said, adding that it needed to stay somewhere else "for a transitional period".
Magyar also said that the governing board was currently determining the criteria for the first tenders, to be published and evaluated in 2009. The winners of these EIT tenders will start implementing their projects in 2010, providing the institute's first tangible results.
To read the full interview (in Hungarian only), please click here.
