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How can FET better support European innovation?

  • Wide Hogenhout profile
    Wide Hogenhout
    30 September 2015 - updated 4 years ago
  • 7 comments
    Total votes: 3

The FET Advisory Group has been set up at the beginning of H2020 with the mandate to give advice to the Commission regarding the objectives and the scientific and innovation priorities of Future and Emerging Technologies.

As a result of discussions extending over more than a year, the group has now produced the report attached to this discussion, which proposes to put FET at the nucleus of the European Innovation Council.

Get ready to think about everything that is being done for European innovation today, and let us know how FET can contribute to making it work better in the future.

Tags: 
FET FlagshipsFETemerging technologiesinnovation

Comments

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Euro Maker's picture
Euro Maker,
27/10/2015 11:34

Hi all,
why not to think about a more articulated way to evaluate proposals?

Thre can be different ways to do so, for instance:
- weighted scores: 50% crowdsourced on an online evaluation platform, 50% contributed by experts selected by the EC
- two steps: two weeks online crowdsource of comments (just comments), followed by a standard evaluation that builds on the comments.
Final decision by EC.

This is also linked to Citizen Science

Total votes: 3
Nigel Gilbert's picture
Nigel Gilbert,
27/10/2015 22:13

I agree that we should be innovative in the methods of evaluation to be used, and that this idea is worthy of consideration. The main problem I see is that the 'crowd' that will participate is not really a crowd, but a rather small group of scientists who are already familiar with H2020 and FET. For example, look at who responded to the FET consultation exercise - very few if any members of the public at large, and even very few researchers not already involved with FET.

Total votes: 1
John Magan's picture
John Magan,
30/10/2015 21:31

Good idea - let's try to practice what we preach! There will be problems but that's no reason not to try... Get in touch!
John

Total votes: 1
Wim Melis's picture
Wim Melis (not verified),
06/10/2015 11:10

Dear all,

Having looked through the report and having had some recent experience with FET-OPEN, I would like to point out a few things:
1) The report puts a very high stress on high risk - high gain. If projects are really high-risk, then the gain is probably also uncertain, so essentially a risk. If one is to truly nourish innovation at its core, then the stress should probably be more on high-risk with potential. Most of the best inventions had their outcome in a quite different area than originally anticipated, so asking for "high gain" at the start of these projects would not have led to the result wanted, since the actual outcomes where elsewhere.
2) The report correctly identifies a weakness in the fact that there is a gap after FET-OPEN, before going to another scheme, however there also seems to be a bit of a tendency of moving the FET requirements to higher TRL, which is not really appropriate. Innovation is most challenging to get going at its core levels of having a great idea, and this is what should be supported more and better. Unfortunately, from my experience, most evaluators simply look at what is there now ... and don't appreciate true innovation, but rather slash it down with rather silly comments. Something that will need to be worked upon in the future, probably by being more selective in who evaluates on these calls and how they perceive true innovation, which extends quite a bit beyond what "their field" is.
3) There is a common perception that innovation can only happen in certain (well-known) places, which is contrary to my experience as an evaluator, where I noticed the best ideas came from places I had not heard about. To avoid such "bias" and considering that innovation is really about the idea and that if one can come up with the idea one is probably also the best to work on it, I would propose that all parties taking place in the project are anonymised, which would lead to true judgement of the idea as such.
While I welcome a lot of the proposals made, I would hope that the actual focus does not get forgotten. After all, if one wants to make Europe the place for innovation, then a lot more investment will need to be put in, to make it more easy for innovators to get the funds to get going. I am looking forward to see these changes implemented.

Best Regards,

Total votes: 1
Wide Hogenhout's picture
Wide Hogenhout,
06/10/2015 15:05

FET has always aimed for high-risk/high-gain research and indeed this often ends up crossing the boundaries of disciplines, and hence FET has a lot of multidisciplinary research. This to me is an important element in the discussion: how can we design a process that is successful at selecting the best proposals, if as you say it can be difficult to foresee where and how they will lead to innovation opportunities.

I agree with you that it is important to identify where the gaps are and how we can make sure true innovation is recognised and can always find its place. The end of a project should not be the end of an idea with potential, but at the same time the best place to continue may not be the technical area from where it originated. This also links to people – when different people are needed to take an idea to the next level, their involvement should be built into the process.

Total votes: 1
Yvan Richard's picture
Yvan Richard (not verified),
20/10/2015 14:25

I completely agree with point 3 from Wim "innovation is really about the idea... I noticed the best ideas came from places I had not heard about. ... I would propose that all parties taking place in the project are anonymised". Looks fine for me! Could we also extend the notion of "parties" to the freelance workers?

Regards

Total votes: 1
Walter Van de Velde's picture
Walter Van de Velde (not verified),
27/10/2015 10:33

In FET we have a long history of anonymous proposals, exactly to remove a bias based on where an idea is coming from. But it became increasingly hard to define anonymity so the measure was abandoned. The concept makes sense, but harder to implement than it seems, because of the Part B of the proposal which can contain any indication of who is participating in the free text.

Total votes: 1