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Giovanni Colombo – Istituto Superiore Mario Boella(già membro dell’executive committee EIT)

APRE

L’Istituto Europeo di Innovazione e Tecnologia

Roma, 20 novembre 2012

Le strategie globali dell’EIT. Quale futuro in

Horizon 2020?

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The EIT – a brief and intensive journey towards the

knowledge triangle integration

• EIT launched the 15th September 2008 – set up to revitalise the

EU innovation landscape

• the first initiative of the European Union bringing together the

three dimensions of the knowledge triangle

Mission:

“To be the catalyst for a step change

in the European Union’s innovation capacity and impact”

Education

Innovation

Research

the glue: entrepreneurship

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….. to improve European competitiveness by addressing a

sustainable economic growth through a stronger innovation

capability First action (Dec. 2009) the creation of

Knowledge and Innovation Communities aiming

at:

• build innovative ‘webs of excellence’

• create new business with societal impact

• educate and develop entrepreneurial people

• KIC’s Stakeholders:Business, Entrepreneurs, Research and

Technology Organisations, Education,

Investment Communities, Local and

National Governments

The EIT operates via

Knowledge & Innovation Communities (KICs)

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A KIC and its Co-location Centres

• KICs, highly integrated, creative, excellence-driven,

autonomous partnerships; internationally distributed but

thematically convergent partners

• KIC co-location, a geographical location of a KIC where a large

part of the innovation web can work in proximity

across the innovation web

• CEO type leadership; a monitored business

plan with targeted investment returns and

drivers based on achievements

• Minimum 7 years life

KIC

co-locationcentre

Climate-KIC:

Co-location centreRIC (Regional Implementation and

Innovation Centre)

EIT ICT Labs:

Co-location centre

Associate PartnerKIC InnoEnergy

Co-location centre

KICs – The first three KICs and the geographical

distribution

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KICs achievements since 2010

• 17 innovation hotspots spread across Europe

• 280 partners from industry, research, academia and other

relevant institutions

• 170 million € EIT seed investment topped by the three KICs

with more than 600 million € derived from external sources

• 1000 students recruited into20 specific educational

programmes integrating interdisciplinary innovation and

entrepreneurship

• 100projects initiated by the KICs, 27 start-up companies, 35

patent applications and 100 novel services and products in

the pipeline

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The EIT/KIC model – essential values

• Local-global : KIC as a potential model for synergy

o global dimension of the KIC (coded knowledge,

competition)

o local policies and choices (tacit knowledge) enabling

sustainable processes and certifying their feasibility

• Adopting knowledge-based, open and demand-based

innovation models (anticipatory attitude, entrepreneurship,

role of PA)

• Challenging on business models sustainability-enabled

and networking mechanisms

• Exploring new paths to remunerate and exploit knowledge

creation efforts (social entrepreneurship, continuous innovation

process)

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A contribution to face European limits in innovation

• discontinuous innovation in knowledge-

intensive sectors, low private R&D spending

• non-R&D based innovation in SMEs

• low entrepreneurial culture (firms renewal)

and innovation-driven education

• insufficient organisational and process

innovation

• market fragmentation, weak linkage

of local capabilities to global perspectives

European Innovation Scoreboard

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A support to European policies(challenging on both What? and How?)

HOW? (contribution to EU

policy, new models for

business, innovation and

education)

WHAT? (economic and social

value through new

innovative schemes and

entrepreneurship)

EIT/KICs

Horizon 2020

• integration of R&I from idea

to market

• added value from societal

challenges

• room for discontinuous

approaches and creativity

• simplification

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Investing in KICs by trusting in non-conventional ideas

Performance indicators

• new business created

(e.g. # KIC spin-off, market value)

• talents attraction (#of PhD, Post-doc,

courses for entrepreneurship, creativity,

mobility levels)

• industrial partnership attraction (investment, polarisation of

activities)

• development of the EIT brand (culture, innovation and

education models)

Indicators Reporting(KIC)

InvestmentEvaluation

(GB)

Business,Education and

Research Plans (KIC)

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EIT, a valuable model for some Italian weaknesses

• research and market fragmentation

• limits in knowledge management and firm renewal

(entrepreneurship)

• difficulty to embed R&D national opportunities in the

European framework

Industry

• widening perspectives: innovative

business-driven international chains

• access to promising innovation

models

Academia:

• challenging on multi-disciplinary

research and process innovation

• contribution to new education

models

Public entities:

• exploitation of social value

embedded in the grand

challenges

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Some hints to try for KICs on the new themes

Look at social and economic expectation and potential impact

(e.g. knowledge jobs, market, sustainability)

A good candidate KIC shows high elasticity

(impact incremental growth) to the “EIT production

mechanism”

realising the conditions for added value

creation (stakeholders, entrepreneurial

capability, local-global juncture, lead

market creation)

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An example: healthy living and active aging (°)

family

citizen

servicecentre

hospital

localcentre

familyDoctor

personalcase file

thirdsector

socialservices

• prevention and personalised health

• predictive medicine and early diagnosis

• de-hospitalization, assistance and

chronic diseases

• inter-generational contract, active life

Essential requirements:

• preserve wellbeing under pressing financial

constraints

• polarise process innovation efforts by exploiting

creativity, dissemination, public adoption and social

involvement

• integrate the management of the overall process(°) linkage with EIP on active and healthy ageing

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An example: food for future (°)

• food-physiology interaction

• improve horticultural quality, animal health and welfare

• rural communities as trustee for management of natural

resources and biological diversity

Essential requirements:

• valorise local production peculiarities through new agro-food

value chains

• create sustainable models from fork to farm (healthy nutrition,

packaging and distribution, production)

• consolidation of knowledge-based rural economy, related

education models and professional perspectives(°) linkage with Food for life platformand Extended reflection paper - Theme 2