European Commission consults on the EIT's future strategy

Link to Open Public Consultation

"With the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, we are pioneering a new collaboration between higher education, research and business. The Commission is keen to listen to the views of our partners before finalising our proposal on the future strategy. The idea of it is to build on the lessons learned from the Institute's first phase and to prepare the way for expanding the EIT. The Institute has the potential to become a powerful motor of innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe," declared Commissioner Vassiliou.

The EIT has an administrative headquarters (in Budapest), but operates from 16 sites throughout Europe, from Barcelona to Stockholm, through cross-border public-private partnerships known as 'knowledge and innovation communities', or KICs for short. The KICs bring together excellent higher education institutions, research centres and businesses. To date, three KICs have been created, focusing on sustainable energy (InnoEnergy KIC), climate change (Climate KIC) and information and communication society (EIT ICTLabs).

The consultation complements a broad debate on the future of EU research and innovation funding (see Commission Green Paper "From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic Framework for EU Research and Innovation funding", 9 February 2011).

Next steps

The consultation is open for comments from 14 April. The deadline for feedback from interested parties is 30 June. Based on the results of this process, as well as an independent evaluation and also a proposal from the EIT itself, the Commission will present the strategic innovation agenda by December 2011.

Full press release - EN

Full press release - FR