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Research and innovation
News article30 June 2020Directorate-General for Research and Innovation

European Innovation Council Advisory Board presents roadmap for Europe to lead in the technologies and industries of the future

The European Innovation Council (EIC) Advisory Board, an independent group of leading entrepreneurs, researchers, investors and innovation experts, have today published report - A vision and roadmap for impact - to pave the way for the fully-fledged EIC in Horizon Europe (2021 – 2027).

The report, which includes the vision statement of the board published in April this year, states that: ‘Without doubt, the EIC will play a leading role in establishing Europe as the place where the industries of the future will be established and flourish, creating wealth through socially responsible enterprise, and generating opportunities for our talented and enthusiastic youth to stay and build their futures in Europe’.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“The European Innovation Council will play a key role in the economic recovery, and this is why the Commission’s recovery package proposed to increase its budget beyond €10 billion as part of Horizon Europe. The advisory board members have set out a practical roadmap to maximise the impact of the European Innovation Council to catapult Europe’s game-changing startups, SMEs and researchers onto a global stage.”

The report recommends key performance indicators of societal impact, economic impact and diversity. While commending the new approaches taken in the current EIC pilot, the Board recommend further improving implementation by drawing lessons from venture capital by introducing shorter, simpler applications, with rapid feedback and agile decision-making.

According to the report, to further connect deep-tech research with market opportunities, the EIC should ‘build ‘portfolios of projects clustering around similar themes that can be curated and actively managed by EIC Programme Managers’. The Board also highlight the importance of the pipeline of EIC supported technologies and startups for Europe’s corporates and investors. .

Background

The Commission-appointed board is made up of 22 innovators from the worlds of entrepreneurship, venture capital, science and technology to the European Innovation Council Advisory Board are providing strategic advice to the Commission for the implementation of the current €3 billion pilot (2018-20) and launch of the  full EIC under Horizon Europe. The Board’s advice will feed into the preparation of the first EIC Work Programme.

A key novelty of Horizon Europe is the establishment of a European Innovation Council. A first pilot phase of the EIC was launched in October 2017, followed by a reinforced pilot in March 2019 and specific actions on COVID, gender and the Green Deal in 2020, with the objective of funding Europe’s most exciting innovations, including researchers, startups and scaleups.

The European Innovation Council is part of a wider ecosystem that the EU is putting in place to give Europe's many entrepreneurs every opportunity to become world leading companies. Other initiatives include the [Industry strategy, SME strategy, Digital Europe strategy, the European Institute for Innovation and Technology and the forthcoming European Research Area]

More information

EIC website

Factsheet on Horizon Europe

Details

Publication date
30 June 2020
Author
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation