Proposal to Establish the European Institute
of Technology: Interim Report
1. This Interim Report refers to issues raised
by the European Commission's proposal to establish the European
Institute of Technology.[1]
2. The Commission's view is that there is a weakness
in the EU in technological innovation arising from its limited
capacity to convert research results into commercial opportunities.
The aim is for the establishment of the EIT to address this weakness
and to establish a global reputation by integrating effectively
education, research and innovation. This, in turn, would support
the EU's aims of promoting growth and employment.
3. The Commission's early thinking about the
possible form of an EIT included the concept of a new physical
entity which would be attended by students and would form a focus
for research into the application of technology in Europe.[2]
Following consultation, however, this controversial approach has
disappeared in the present proposal.
4. The Commission now envisage the EIT operating
through the activities of a number of Knowledge and Innovation
Communities (KICs). These KICs would consist of partnerships between
the private sector, research organisations and higher education
institutions; it is envisaged that six of them would be established
during the period up to 2013. The KICs would use state-of-the-art
research networking and computing infrastructures in order to
achieve their aims of integrating activities between participants
in their partnerships. The EIT would have an independent Governing
Board, including high level representation from academia and industry.
The Board would set the strategic objectives of the EIT and would
define the areas in which KICs would be established. Supporting
the Board would be a central staff of up to 60 people composed
in equal proportions of scientists and support staff.
5. We share the general agreement among stakeholders
about the Commission's identification of the European Union's
relative weakness, compared to its main international competitors,
in applying knowledge and research to innovation in order to enhance
business activity and jobs. However, we are yet to be convinced
that there is a need for a new European institution, in the EIT
form currently proposed, in order to address this problem. Our
grave concern is that, in practice, the EIT model put forward
by the Commission would cost a great deal of money and would be
largely ineffective.
6. We therefore invited Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
(Chief Executive) and Mr Chris Hale (Policy Adviser) from
the organisation Universities UK to speak to us, on 22 February
2007, about this subject. In this Report, we make available for
the information of the House, the oral evidence that they gave
to us.
7. In answering questions from the Sub-Committee,
the evidence from Universities UK covered the following topics:
- the problem faced by EU Member
States in converting education and research results into commercial
opportunities (Q 1);
- the shift in the Commission's EIT proposals from
an EIT as a physical entity to one based on a network approach
(Q 2);
- the likely effectiveness of the Knowledge and
Innovation Communities (KICs) now proposed by the Commission as
a basis for the EIT (Q 3);
- the Commission's proposals for the Governing
Board and support staff of the EIT (Q 4);
- funding of the EIT (Q 5);
- the strategic direction of the EIT (Q 6);
- measures to ensure the
quality of EIT activities (Q 7);
- the award of EIT branded degrees (Q 8);
- Universities UK's view of desirable modifications
to the EIT proposal (Q 9); and,
- Universities UK's view of how the EU's technological
innovation problem might be addressed in the absence of an EIT
(Q 10).
8. Our meeting with the representatives from
Universities UK helped to improve our understanding of the significant
issues raised by the Commission's EIT proposal. The evidence they
provided confirmed to us that our concerns about the lack of precise
information relating to the proposal and its costs are well founded.
We therefore decided to write to the European Commission about
our concerns, asking for the Commissioner's views on the following
issues:
- The merit of the idea of carrying
out a review, in advance of establishing the EIT, in order to
identify, much more clearly than is now the case, the nature of
the knowledge transfer problem in the EU that needs to be tackled,
and to establish how incentives could be introduced for the business
community to become involved in the proposed Knowledge and Innovation
Communities (KICs).
- How the central funding of the EIT would be established
from both internal EU and external sources; and whether the need
to find internal EU funding would divert funding from the existing
EU Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7).
- The need to ensure that the administrative arrangements
for the EIT should be as light-touch as possible in order not
to deter support from business; and our concern that the present
proposal for as many as 60 staff (30 scientists and 30 others)
directly employed by the EIT might not be seen in this way.
- The provisions in the Commission proposal with
regard to the degree-awarding powers of the EIT; and whether it
was now envisaged that degrees should be awarded by the individual
higher education institutions in each KIC, with the possibility
of the EIT name being included in order to demonstrate that the
degree has been awarded as part of the work of a KIC.
9. In concluding our letter to the Commission,
we emphasised that we agreed that the EIT proposal does address
a serious problem. We said also that we accepted that an EIT,
in an appropriate form, could potentially make a positive contribution
to solving that problem. We explained, however, that we would
very much appreciate the Commissioner's thoughts on the matters
of concern we had raised, so that we could make a fully informed
judgement on the issue.
10. In this Interim Report, we make available
for the information of the House: the document sent to us by Universities
UK as background information for our meeting with them (Appendix
1); and a transcript of the oral evidence they gave us (Minutes
of Evidence reproduced at the end of the Report (pp 1-11)).
11. We also make available our letter to the
Commission (Appendix 2); and our correspondence with the UK Government
Minister responsible for the EIT dossier (Appendix 3). We will
return to this matter when we have received the responses to our
letters.
1 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament
and Council-Establishing the European Institute of Technology
(EIT), COM(206) 604 final Back
2
For comment on this original proposal see: (a) European Union
Committee 33rd Report of Session 2005-06, "Seventh Framework
Programme for Research" (paras 49 and 50); (b) House of Lords
debate "Universities: Research and Development" (27
April 2006) Hansard, column 278 Back
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