An independent group of experts recommends that the European Innovation Council takes inspiration from large US research and development programmes.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) aims to enable Europe to play a crucial role in the next breakthrough innovations. A group of independent experts, led by Lars Frolund of MIT and Denmark’s Innovation Fund, suggest in their report to change the EIC Pathfinder in a “hands-on agency” and take the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) or Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as models for how it could be managed. To achieve this, the expert group wants the EIC to establish Programme Managers (PMs) who actively manage portfolios of the funded projects.
The Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Open is a scheme for early stage research with a radical vision for future technologies. Projects in this programme need to be ambitious and aim for breakthrough technology. The FET Open, now part of the EIC Pathfinder, is also able to fund coordination and support actions (under the Innovation Launchpad instrument) to verify the innovation potential of those high-risk researches. The scheme hopes for innovation, but not as a part of the project, usually. Now, in the EIC Pathfinder, the focus shifts towards active management to find the use-cases and applications, by combining complementary projects in portfolios. The hoped-for outcome is that more of the knowledge produced gets valorised and applied.
The report, however, also recommends a bottom-up feature for maintaining some of the FET Open approach. This means that applicants in the EIC Pathfinder would still be able to develop ideas free from sectoral criteria for the selection. The report proposes a combination of challenge-driven and thematic-driven programmes. Thematic-driven programmes are the part of the recommendation for the EIC Pathfinder that leans on the FET Open scheme. After an open call, selected projects are grouped in well-defined thematic based portfolios e.g. battery technology. Such bottom-up funding instruments aim to support early stage development of new technologies.
The challenge-driven programmes, on the other hand, contain projects based on a PM-initiated call – challenge based calls entry. Here the objective is the identification of competitive challenges. The selected projects are deep-tech based and strive to make Europe a leader in the corresponding scientific field. However, the expert group understands the challenge-driven programmes as a mix of top-down selection, the PM’s vision and inspirations, and bottom-up calls, as well as insights from the Europe’s innovation ecosystems, which creates an overlap between challenge statements and emerging technological opportunities. In both programmes, challenge- and thematic-driven, the created portfolios are pro-actively managed by PMs, who pursue negotiated milestones and have therefore the right to accelerate, re-orient, and terminate projects.
The report’s recommendations are separated in three categories: Programme Creations, Active Portfolio Management and Transition activities. Firstly, the main recommendation is to empower PMs in general. PMs should be able to create, assemble and actively manage portfolios. The programmes should be based on the vision of PMs and the insights of Europe’s innovation ecosystem. Generally, programmes should have a clear and ambitious strategy, which goes “beyond the confines of laboratory”. Additionally, the programme approval process should become more flexible and agile by delegating the authority of approval to the EIC Agency Director, who will be advised by the EIC Board and the EIC Programme Committee
Secondly, the report proposes to integrate milestones and deliverables, which the contracting parties agree on through negotiation and dialogue. The PMs will then review the progress of the projects quarterly and may interfere actively in the project. The experts want the PMs to have the ability to “accelerate, reorient and/or terminate all projects and programmes according to their ability to achieve the negotiated milestones”. The remaining funds of a terminated project should be then made accessible to other projects.
Thirdly, the PMs should develop a transition strategy on the level of programmes and a transition plan at the project level. The EIC should also create a tech-to-market (T2M) team, which can help with transition activities and establish an EIC fellowship to enable post-graduates engaging with PMs and the T2M team. As a part of the transition strategy, PMs should develop with the T2M team an innovation ecosystem engagement plan. The expert group also recommends a customer relationship management (CRM) system and a deep-tech training programme.