Researchers views on the European Innovation Council

By Ingemar Pongratz

The European Commission has recently launched a new idea to support European Innovation efforts and European SME through a new structure, which they call the European Innovation Council. Fenix Scientific AB / Pongratz Consulting has been following the development and the discussions around the European Innovation Council (EIC) and how the EIC will impact on other EU funding instruments such as the Horizon 2020 funding scheme. In fact we reported that there is considerable concern among the European Academic community that the EIC will further erode Horizon 2020, as was the case with the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI)

Recently, EARTO (European Association for Research and Technology Associations) published their views on the European Innovation Council.

EARTO highlights that there should be a separation of mandates, in fact, EARTO points out that EIC should focus on excellent innovation, in the same way as the European Research Council focuses on excellent research. In addition, the focus of the EIC should also include bringing research into the market.

EARTO calls also for integration of different innovation networks and innovation cluster across Europe, and focusing on specific areas and/or topics. On the same line, EARTO calls for dedicated infrastructure across Europe to support innovation.

An interesting point is that the EIC should be regarded as a bridge between the EFSI funds and European Innovation and suggests that the EIC should be managed jointly, by industry actors and by research performers.

These are interesting ideas and it will be interesting to follow the discussion and final product. Clearly, there are many different views and the views from other societal sectors may very well collide with the views from EARTO.

Ingemar Pongratz is help organizations and enterprises to apply for public funding for different projects. We support applicants with the planning and implementation of project applications for example for the Horizon 2020 scheme and other schemes as well.

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