Little support for top European institute
The plan to establish a separate European Institute of Technology (EIT) has received insufficient support from EU member states.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was hoping that definite decisions could be taken on the EIT at the European summit at the end of March, but the European Council has not approved the plan.
The EIT will now be nothing more than a collaborative project between universities and research institutes.
The European Union has fallen behind in terms of science and technology, with fewer European Nobel prizewinners and European scientists not producing enough commercial products.
Barroso believes that a top European institute of technology would allow the EU to catch up. The EIT must be a full-fledged technical university able to compete with the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA. That will mean the best scientists at existing institutes working together in ‘knowledge communities’.
Barroso’s plan encountered criticism from the very beginning. The costs alone were a problem: it would cost two billion euros just to set up the institute.
The academic world would prefer to see Brussels investing the money in existing joint programmes and does not think that the investment in such a top-level network should be at the expense of research budgets in Western Europe.
Barroso initially wanted the EIT to start operating in 2010, but now that the member states have rejected the idea of a separate institute the plan is to be revised. Whether a European science and technology network will indeed be set up will become clear in June, when the European Commission presents its revised plan.
Source: NUFFIC News, Transfer (May 2006)
