The European Commission outlines its vision for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)’s educational activities.
On 11 July, the European Commission (EC) adopted its proposals for a new legal basis as well as a Strategic Innovation Agenda 2021-2027 (SIA 2021-2027) for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) that will be funded under the new EU research framework programme ‘Horizon Europe’ with EUR 3 billion for the period 2021-2027 (see SwissCore article). The proposed SIA 2021-2027, called ‘Boosting the Innovation Talent and Capacity of Europe’, provides some insights into the direction the EC wants the EIT to go regarding education and training.
With the overarching rationale of the EIT to foster knowledge triangle integration (i.e. bridging the persistent gap between higher education, research and innovation), education is high on the agenda. The introduction of the European Innovation Council (EIC) may have contributed to a certain rebranding of the EIT as the EU innovation programme that uniquely sees education as the way to increase innovation capacity, and uniquely supports regional outreach.
In particular, the EIT shall support 750 higher education institutions with funding, expertise and coaching, enabling them to develop economic activities within their area of interest according to the SIA 2021-2027. The focus will continue to lie on innovation and entrepreneurship capacity, mainly at Master and Doctoral levels, yet the EC suggests fostering the development of entrepreneurial and innovation skills in a lifelong learning perspective and to e.g. work with institutions in sectors such as in Vocational Education and Training (VET) and adult learning. A stated objective of the new task is to integrate the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) into the regional innovation ecosystems. The EIT shall, amongst others, design and launch activities in countries with a lower innovation capacity. The EIT support should further build on policy initiatives such as the HEInnovate and Regional Innovation Impact Assessment (RIIA) frameworks.
The EC suggests doing the following in order to support the innovation capacity of higher education:
- “In cooperation with the Commission, design and launch activities to support the development of innovation capacity in higher education, which will be implemented through the KICs, starting in 2021.
- Introduce an outreach scheme to incentivise HEIs from moderate and modest innovator countries to develop their innovation capacities.
- Provide specific guidance, expertise and coaching to participating HEIs.
- Strengthen and widen the scope of the EIT Label beyond the KICs to include the HEIs participating in the action.”
Regarding the EIT label, the EC acknowledges that monitoring the award of the EIT Label to KICs’ education and training programmes is needed, as well as exploring a more effective quality assurance mechanism, including external recognition and accreditation for the EIT Label.
It remains to be seen how coherence and complementarity with other programmes such as Erasmus+ (incl. the European University initiative), Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme are established concretely and how implementation and delivery mechanisms are developed within the first three years.
Already in January 2018, the EIT itself had submitted its strategic outlook for post-2020 to the EC proposing to strengthen the education activities. The adopted EC proposals for the EIT regulation and the SIA 2021-2027 can now be presented to the European Parliament and the Council for discussion and adoption.