Commissioner Vassiliou's speech - 'Launching the KICs - Delivering new solutions to the European innovation landscape' Conference
Androulla VASSILIOU
Member of the European Commission responsible for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth
'Launching the KICs - Delivering new solutions to the European innovation landscape' Conference
Barcelona, 3 June 2010
Dear Chairman,
Dear Secretary of State
Dear Dr Schuurmans
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a real pleasure for me to be here at this conference on 'Launching the Knowledge and Innovation Communities'. This event marks an important step, not only in setting up the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, but for Europe's knowledge and innovation landscape as a whole.
Europe is going through testing times: Testing times for our economies and societies and indeed for many European citizens. While working hard to tackle the pressing challenges of today, our answer to the crisis must be firmly anchored in the future. And I believe the best investment for Europe is to create the conditions for a strong knowledge society to emerge.
President Barroso has, in this respect, put forward the Europe 2020 strategy, which should be adopted by the EU Member States in a few days from now. Europe 2020 is the EU's blueprint to get our economies back on track and to emerge stronger and more sustainable in the course of the next decade.
It is not by accident that innovation and knowledge are at the heart of the strategy. They are key drivers for smart growth, helping us to ensure our competitiveness and our jobs, and to preserve Europe as an attractive place to work, life and study. We therefore need to continue our joint efforts for improving the quality of our education, strengthening our research performance, and for promoting innovation and knowledge transfer throughout the Union.
In that perspective, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology has a pioneering role to play. I believe the EIT is one of those projects that have the ability to shape our future.
It is indeed the first EU initiative fully integrating the entire knowledge triangle of higher education, research and innovation. It is therefore one of our flagships leading the way towards a culture of nourishing new ideas, of generating and sharing knowledge and of fostering entrepreneurial mindsets.
We are here today to celebrate the launch of the EIT's Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) which are the testbeds for this new kind of approach. I am very impressed by the speed by which the EIT has gone from a concept to a reality. The three first KICs have been selected and the EIT is now settled in Budapest thanks to its director M. De Nazelle.
I would like here to thank the coordinators of the three selected KICs but also the Governing Board of the EIT and its chairman Dr Schuurmans for their commitment.
The swift maturation of the selected proposals into fully operational and functional KICs will be of the essence over the coming months. I therefore urge you to keep up this good work and to facilitate the signature of the framework agreements.
There are certainly areas where impact will take longer to materialise - and the KICs have been given an unprecedented long time horizon of 7-15 years to account for this fact. At the same time, there are areas where tangible results can be delivered in shorter time and I am very much looking forward to see the first outcomes. Perhaps we can count the first KIC students among the audience when we meet next time?
The higher education component of the KICs is actually one of the novelty and one of the strengths of the EIT. If we are to boost innovation, we need to put a particular emphasis on entrepreneurship education and transferable skills such as creativity, project management or risk assessment.
I am fully conscious that building up the KICs is a challenging task - as it is for any pioneer. The KIC partners enter unknown territory by committing to a legal structure, to leadership and to an unprecedented degree of integration in many ways.
While it is up to the KICs, supported by the EIT, to build up these structures and to explore new ground, let me assure you of my full support in this endeavour. Through the Knowledge Innovation Communities we actually create a genuine, unique and European model of interaction between the actors of the knowledge triangle. This approach, I believe, reflects the spirit of the European Union: Integrated and united towards a common goal, but flexible enough to respect the diversity of its actors.
The KICs have therefore a unique opportunity to make a real and lasting difference to Europe's knowledge and innovation landscape. I call on you to seize this opportunity and to shape the way we work and study together, the way we innovate and the way we support new business creation.
The EIT and its KICs are real game-shifters. I can only encourage the EIT under the leadership of you, Mr. Chairman, to continue on its path of timely delivery, simplicity of procedures, and of a results oriented outlook.
We are on the right track, but we still need to deliver the proof that the EIT is a credible answer to the challenge of innovation in Europe.
In that perspective, the most important institutional "rendez vous" for the EIT, will be the adoption in 2011 of the first Strategic Innovation Agenda outlining the EIT's mid-to long term priorities. It will be the EIT's opportunity to present, built ideally on some initial success stories from the KICs, a convincing case for its future vision and needs to the budgetary authority - the Member States and the European Parliament - in view of the next financial framework.
The EIT will need to assess for instance the effectiveness of the governance in place. It will have to describe in detail the optimal number of KICs which could be created in the coming years as well as the themes and priority areas they should tackle. A lot will depend on the quality and credibility of the EIT's first years and therefore on the three KICs we are launching today.
I am very much looking forward to today's discussions, centred on crucial elements for building up the KICs and making them work. It is my hope that we can move the EIT and its KICs another step forward by looking at the concepts and plans with a constructive attitude, an open mind and a reasonable dose of real curiosity.
Thank you,