The board members, appointed on 30 July, come from the three segments of the so-called "knowledge triangle" - the worlds of research, education and innovation, which are expected to put their brains together within the institute to solve the EU's innovation and competitiveness problems.
The appointment of the governing board follows a two-step public consultation procedure organised by an ad-hoc identification committee, which initially received some 130 proposals from different stakeholders. The final selection was done according to a specific selection criteria elaborated by the committee.
The criteria established that the members must be academic, scientific, or business leaders and innovators with outstanding forward-looking abilities and broad view and practical understanding of "overall European innovation goals and systems, global market trends and both academic and business environments".
Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who initially came up with the idea in February 2005, said he was "delighted" with the nomination and convinced that the excellence of the board's members would make the EIT a success.
The board's inaugural meeting in Budapest on 15 September 2008 will mark the official start to the agency's operations. Its first tasks will inlcude establishing the institution's overall strategy, leading to the selection and launch of the first two or three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) by the end of 2009.
After that, the board will be responsible for the coordination and evaluation of these virtual centres of scientific collaboration.
KICs will bring together departments of universities, companies and research institutes to form an integrated partnership to perform education and innovation activities in inter-disciplinary strategic areas, such as climate change, renewable energy and the next generation of information and communiation technologies (ICT).
The initial Governing Board's 18 members will be later joined by four additional representative members elected by and from among the higher education, research, innovation, technical and administrative staff, EIT students and the KICs.
