EUROPE: EIT starts work with first board meeting

The often controversial European Institute of Innovation and Technology has begun operations, with its newly appointed governing board having its first meeting and the European Commission claiming it will help close Europe's research spending gap compared with the United States.

The inaugural meeting was held in Budapest, Hungary, the institute's home base. At an opening ceremony, Commission president José Manuel Barroso - a keen supporter of the initiative - said: "By attracting and retaining the best and most talented students, researchers and staff from across Europe, and worldwide, the EIT will bring significant value-added to the EU's [European Union] research and innovation landscape. It will become a breeding ground for new ideas and help turning innovative ideas into reality."

Barroso welcomed the involvement of business within the EIT, saying it was "crucial, because the lack of business-funded R&D explains almost 85% of the gap [in research spending] between the EU and the USA, for example".

"Over time, the EIT will contribute to boosting research and development in Europe, close the business-funding gap, and bring the proportion of GDP spent on R&D closer to the 3% target that [EU] member states have set themselves."

At the meeting, the board elected Professor Martin Schuurmans as chair of the EIT governing board. Schuurmans is a physics professor and a former executive vice president of Philips Research.

A Dutchman, he is currently chair of the international advisory board to the Sino-Dutch Biomedical School of Information Engineering (BMIE) in Shenyang, China, which he co-founded and was its dean from 2006-7.

Welcoming the experience of other board members, Schuurmans said: "I think I have never seen a group of people which has such a collective wisdom in so many fields of innovation."

He called on them to ensure that the institute managed within three years to set up at least two 'knowledge and information communities' (KICs), the basic organisational unit of EIT research networks.

An initial budget of EUR300 million (US$440.3 million) for 2008-2013 has been earmarked for the new body from EU funds but the expectation is that business will pay large sums to "buy into" the EIT's work once the body is established.

*Other EIT board members - see: www.europa.eu

keith.nuthall@uw-news.com