CHAPTER 2: How we think the Commission
should have formulated the EIT proposal
9. We agree with the consensus view that there
is a weakness in the European Union in the commercial application
of technological innovation, which arises from its limited capacity
to convert education and research results into business opportunities.
However, our view is that the approach taken by the Commission
in formulating its EIT proposal to address this problem has been
misguided.
10. The first step that should have been taken,
in our view, was to have conducted, across the EU, a study of
the type carried out in the UK by Richard Lambert, which resulted
in the publication in December 2003 of the report Lambert Review
of Business-University Collaboration.[3]
In that report, a careful analysis was made not only of the
funding needs of universities to carry out innovative research,
but also of how to ensure that there was significantly more business
input into the priority setting and decision-making processes
relating to that research. This business leadership was seen as
a necessary condition for making sure that the projects carried
out had more chance of taking account of consumer markets and
of resulting in the introduction of commercially successful, as
well as innovative, products and services.
11. The European Commission told us (Appendix
2 page 15) that "the findings of the 'Lambert Review' have
been a source of inspiration for the Commission's reflection on
improving knowledge transfer between the public research base
and industry across Europe". However, we believe that, had
such a study been carried out across the EU, and had the views
of business expressed in it been similar to those expressed in
the UK, the Commission might have been persuaded to put forward
a different, and more effective, concept for the EIT. This could
have been a business-orientated innovation and commercialisation
centre at EU level with the objectives of:
● stimulating
local business-university collaboration in technological innovation
with a strong emphasis on fostering an understanding by all the
parties involved of the market realities and the need to ensure
that the projects undertaken are commercially realistic as well
as technologically stimulating;
● helping
to join together related local efforts of this kind in cases where
they could benefit from such wider cooperation;
● encouraging
and helping to finance the development of business-orientated
skills in the application of innovation; and
● directing
the available funding not only to help university research related
to technological innovation, but also to assist business start-ups
that could successfully put into practice the fruits of such research.
3 HM Treasury: Lambert Review of Business-University
Collaboration, December 2003 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/EA556/lambert_review_final_450.pdf Back
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