We are witnessing important events for the future of the European innovation agenda. The first is the appointment of Ms Ekaterina Zaharieva as Commissioner-designate for Startups, Research and Innovation. We are happy to see that her mission letter includes such a specific reference to the European Innovation Council, a clear sign that the EIC is considered as an important instrument to support Europe’s competitiveness. In addition, for the first time, we will have a Commissioner whose mandate clearly mentions the startups and the development of the EU startup and scale-up strategy. This development reflects the thinking behind an important report that was published earlier this month by Mario Draghi – The future of European competitiveness. A competitiveness strategy for Europe. Following our discussion in the Board, I can convey that the EIC Board wholeheartedly welcomed the report which identifies competitiveness as the core objective for the European Union to sustain growth and prosperity. Moreover, the report highlights key gaps in Europe on disruptive innovation and growing and scaling new companies – both of which are core to the EIC.
We were also pleased to see that the report recognised the importance of the EIC, following the commitment by Commission President von der Leyen to expand the EIC in her Political Guidelines for the next European Commission. We also welcome the recommendations in the report for further improvements to the EIC which provide the EIC Board with valuable inputs for our work in advising the European Commission on the strategy going forward for the EIC.
I invite you all to read the report and am looking forward to further discussions on the future of EU’s competitiveness with the innovation community.
As a Board, we agreed at our meeting to strengthen our focus on the future strategy for the EIC building on its success to date but also the valuable ideas for how we can make it even more impactful for the EU’s competitiveness.
