Brief bilateral meeting with
Brussels, 11 December 2019
CAB GABRIEL/3
Brief bilateral meeting with
Board member
of Siemens AG and of AP Moller Maersk
11 December 8:50-8:45, Covent Garden building,
room 25/SDR2 – next to Nowotny Auditorium
Scene setter
The Horizon Europe foresees that the European Innovation Council will have a
powerful Advisory Board as its main governance structure to set strategy, advise on the
work programme and all EIC activities, and provide broader policy recommendations.
In the current pilot phase, an EIC pilot Advisory Board has been established as an
expert group to anticipate the future full Advisory Board, oversee the pilot EIC activities
and advise on the 1st EIC work programme under Horizon Europe. The pilot Board’s
22 members were appointed in July and had their first meeting in September linked to
the R&I Days.
was one of the original 15 members of the High Level Group of
Innovators that advised the Commission on the establishment of the first European
Innovation Council pilot. As one of Europe’s foremost industrialists
has been
selected to be one of the 22 high level experts taking part in the EIC pilot Advisory
Board and providing strategic advice to the European Commission.
In the context of the second meeting of the EIC pilot Advisory Board on 11 December
2019, you will have a short bilateral with
immediately after your welcome
address to the Board.
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Objectives
• Underline the importance of building connections between innovative SMEs and
start-ups, particularly those receiving funding under the EIC, and large
corporates.
• Point out large corporates can largely benefit from increased collaboration with
innovative SMEs and start-ups, learning about new business models and
increasing their competitiveness on a global scale.
• Stress bold innovators can help bring about the necessary technological
change that key European industries need in light of increased competition from
America, China and other jurisdictions.
• Indicate the EIC is ready to boost cooperation between innovative SMEs/start-
ups and large industrial corporates, most notably through its Business
Acceleration Services and dedicated activities (EIC Innovators’ Summit).
• Determine in which particular ways could large corporates participate in the EIC
and take a more active role in building a European innovation ecosystem
comprising not only start-ups but also universities and research and technology
organisations.
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Line to take
•
two of the biggest European industrial conglomerates with
business ties to crucial sectors such as transport and energy,
can help strengthen the ties between the EIC and Europe’s largest
industrial corporates.
• The EIC can act as a facilitator for increased collaboration between innovative
SMEs and start-ups and large European companies, as well as for the
diversification of the innovation ecosystem and key industrial sector.
• By embracing open innovation and working in tandem SME/start-ups and large
industrial corporates can develop new sustainable business models, therefore
increasing their competitiveness in the global stage and bring about innovative
solutions for the benefits of citizens.
• Building a European innovation ecosystem encompassing both corporates and
start-ups alike is mutually beneficial: start-ups learn how to scale and the
corporates get inspired and can develop fresh ideas.
• By exchanging experiences through open innovation, large corporates and
small and medium enterprises streamline their business model and become
more competitive in the global market place
• European collaboration offers leverage through diversity and knowledge
transfer, building a more sustainable innovation ecosystem for a Europe
embracing digitisation and breakthrough innovation.
• Although a European innovation ecosystem is best conceived as open to the
world, single market rules must be respected.
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Defensive points
Why yet another funding body for start-ups and
innovative SMEs?
• Smart public policy and relevant funding means are
urgently needed to maximise the opportunities and tackle
the existing barriers (fragmented VC market; risk
aversion for disruptive science and innovation; market
scale ; …) which are not addressed yet by any other
institution. There is urgency as we expect a deep-tech
revolution - heavily relying on science and engineering.
Europe has the talent, motivation and resources to lead
the world in the next generation of breakthrough / market
creating and disruptive innovations and the EIC is set to
become a valuable partner in providing the suitable
instruments and ecosystem.
What is the purpose of the (enhanced) EIC pilot?
• The EIC will focus on detecting, nurturing, supporting and
scaling-up breakthrough market-creating and disruptive
innovation, from the idea (“Pathfinder” scheme) down to
market deployment and scale-up (“Accelerator” scheme).
The EIC will be at the heart of the Innovation pillar of the
forthcoming Horizon Europe – the EU Framework for
Research and Innovation (2021-2027).
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Who will get what and why?
• The EIC Pathfinder will provide grants to high-risk
cutting-edge projects, implemented by consortia
exploring new territories aiming at developing radical and
innovative technologies. The EIC Accelerator will provide
single start-ups or SMEs carrying out disruptive
innovation that are still too risky to attract private
investments with the necessary means to scale up
through a mix of grant and finance (notably equity
support). Its ultimate objective is to incentivise and attract
subsequently (and ideally immediately) co-investments
from private (or other public) investments.
Why is it the enhanced EIC pilot now and how is it
different?
• Building on the recommendations of a High-Level Group
of Innovators appointed by Commissioner Moedas and
chaired by
, the enhanced EIC will be
the unique place where inventors meet innovators, and
investors. It will act as a one-stop shop and operate on
an innovator-centric basis: whilst specific objectives may
be identified and implemented via top-down calls
(“challenges”), a continuously open bottom-up
competitive call will allow any innovation in any area or
field to be proposed. Its two main instruments (Pathfinder
and Accelerator) will be interconnected.
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Background notes
Horizon Europe
Research and innovation is a key driver of productivity and sustainable economic
growth, and will be essential for addressing the major societal challenges of our time
and achieving the sustainable development goals of the UN Agenda 2030. Investing in
R&I can also help boost economic convergence, resilience and adjustment capacity,
which are important in the euro area. Focusing research and innovation on the
ecological, social and economic transitions and related societal challenges is therefore
paramount. However, Europe currently underinvests in R&I, in particular the business
sector, and while the scientific and technological performance of the EU is rather
strong, the EU performs less well when it comes to exploiting research results and
developing innovations.
Based on this and on the demonstrated strong EU added value of Horizon 2020 the
Commission has proposed in the next Multiannual Financial Framework to expand the
proposed budget for the next research programme Horizon Europe to 100 billion.
Horizon Europe is centred around excellent science, global challenges and
competitiveness, innovation, and widening participation and strengthening the
European Research Area. The programme builds on the success of Horizon 2020 and
improves it further, namely by fostering stronger support to breakthrough innovation
through the EIC, by creating more impact through R&I missions, and by streamlining
the R&I partnerships landscape.
European missions will focus on ambitious but time-bound and achievable goals to
deliver on common European goods (adapting to climate change; cancer; healthy
oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters; smart, climate-neutral cities; and soil health
and food). The five mission areas do not only concern Horizon Europe, but all the other
MFF programmes, as well as national and regional programmes.
European Partnerships will ensure cooperation between public and private actors to
create the critical mass to respond to the needs of all Member States and stakeholders
(citizens, industry including SMEs, civil society) in line with agreed EU strategic
priorities.
European Innovation Council aims to put Europe on top of the next wave of
breakthrough, market-creating innovation at the intersection of digital/artificial
intelligence and deep tech. It will be the one-stop shop for innovation to enable more
innovators to bring breakthrough technologies to the market and to support small
businesses to innovate on the larger scale.
The redesigned pillar structure of Horizon Europe will move away for a silo-based
approach to an impact-based approach that cuts across disciplines and silos for better
impact. It will reinforce the internal coherence of the different parts of the programme to
achieve programme-level objectives.
The Commission started to prepare the implementation of Horizon Europe on the basis
of the partial agreements reached between Council and Parliament in March/April. The
first step is to elaborate a Strategic Plan for the first 4 years of implementation.
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For this, the Commission engaged Member States already in May in a co-design
process, and launched in June a web based consultation opened to all stakeholders
and citizens and based on an ‘Orientations’ document. The consultation was followed
by a major public event: the European Research and Innovation Days, organised in
Brussels between 24 and 26 September 2019. There were more than 100 conference
sessions where 4000 participants engaged in in-depth debates and provided numerous
inputs on how to steer and implement the first four years of Horizon Europe.
The Strategic Plan will notably define the impacts to be targeted through R&I actions
under Horizon Europe from 2021 onwards, and will highlight how Horizon Europe will
contribute to European policy priorities, address societal challenges, and add value for
citizens, business etc. all over Europe and beyond.
Budget, synergies and international cooperation remain the three main areas of
Horizon Europe open for negotiation with the European Parliament and the Council.
European Innovation Council
Europe needs to capitalise on its science and start-ups to compete in global markets
increasingly defined by new technologies. That is why the European Commission has
launched the European Innovation Council (EIC) as a flagship initiative aimed at
supporting the most talented European innovators in the fast and effective scaling-up of
breakthrough, disruptive innovation.
Currently in its pilot phase, the EIC is part of the Innovative Europe pillar within Horizon
Europe. The proposal for the next EU Framework Programme for research and
innovation has earmarked €10 billion for the EIC.
The EIC is a one-stop-shop for innovators, providing support from the idea to the
market. The EIC therefore covers the two key dimensions of the innovation process:
the early advanced research and the commercialisation and scale-up phase.
To covert both the upstream and the downstream dimension of the innovation chain,
the EIC has fielded two instruments: the EIC Pathfinder and the EIC Accelerator.
(1)
The EIC Pathfinder pilot targets high-risk cutting edge projects exploring
new territories aiming at developing radical and innovative technologies. It
encompasses FET-Open and FET-Proactive. FET-Open uses
interdisciplinary collaboration to tap into Europe's excellent science base for
exploring radically new technologies, which may become the game-
changers of the future. FET-Proactive aims to identify the future and
emerging technological paradigms with highest potential for Europe's
economy and society.
(2)
The EIC Accelerator pilot aims at creating and promoting co-investment by
initiating support where market response is absent and/ or insufficient. It
encompasses the SME Instrument and an optional blended finance
component (combining grant and equity). The EIC Accelerator pilot (SME
Instrument) addresses SMEs with a radically new highly risky, and thus,
non-¬bankable idea underpinned by a business plan for rolling out
marketable innovation solutions and with a potential to scale up. Bankable,
commercially viable projects and projects that are ready or already in the
scale-up phase will be redirected towards dedicated financial instruments.
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The latest cut-off date for an EIC Accelerator call was 9 October 2019. This call was
the first to feature options for grant only and blended finance support, and enabling for
the request of initial grant support with the possibility for a counter offer by the
Commission offering blended finance support. An analysis of the total number of
proposals submitted (1850) indicates that:
-
the total amount of requested financial support is around €5.2 billion, out of
which:
• € 2.83 billion for blended finance (54.6%), out of which:
o
2/3 for Equity (66.9%, representing €1.899 billion)
o
1/3 for grant (33.1%, representing €0.939 billion)
• € 2.36 billion for grant only (45.4%), out of which:
o
more than 2/3 allowing the possibility to receive a counter offer
from the Commission (68.6%, i.e. €1.62 billion)
o
less than 1/3 not allowing the possibility of a counter offer from
the Commission (31.4%, i.e. representing €0.74 billion)
-
the average requested financial support by project is:
• for blended finance: €5.8 million
• for grant only: €1.73 million
Other activities under the EIC pilot phase include:
•
FTI will continue to target industry-driven consortia seeking a quick market
uptake of new solutions, and brings together actors with complementary
backgrounds, knowledge and skills.
•
EIC Horizon Prizes will continue to boost breakthrough innovation by
fostering solutions to challenges, which bring major benefits to society
Implementation of EIC pilot
The Work Programme covers 2018, 2019 and 2020. The aim is to boost processes by
bringing in top-minds with a sense of urgency and a commitment to making an impact.
Work on a revised Work Programme for the year 2020 has already started, aiming at
introducing new elements to align the EIC with the political priorities of the new
Commission.
In addition, a new approach to programme/ projects management will be run by
programme managers, possibly entailing a portfolio approach, in particular under the
EIC Pathfinder pilot. The programme managers are currently being recruited and will
be employed as temporary Commission staff.
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Efforts continue to be made to help firms receiving grants access other forms and
sources of finance appropriate to their scale-up and innovation development needs,
such as crowdfunding, business angel investments, venture capital and loans via
InnovFin and other EU access to finance solutions under the Investment Plan for
Europe or COSME or the European Structural and Investment Funds.
EIC pilot Advisory Board
In June 2019 the Commission has appointed 22 exceptional innovators from the worlds
of entrepreneurship, venture capital, science and technology to the European
Innovation Council Advisory Board, which will provide strategic leadership to the EIC.
The Board will oversee the roll out of the current pilot and lead the strategy and design
of the EIC under Horizon Europe.
In particular, the EIC Pilot Advisory Board was set up:
•
To help identify possible regulatory barriers faced by innovators under the
EIC funding activities;
•
To advise on potential solutions to overcome barriers;
•
To publicly present the work they undertake for the EIC task force to a wider
public as well as to expert audiences. For example, this could include
presentations on how supporting breakthrough and disruptive innovation on
the European level will improve the attractiveness of the entire European
ecosystem for investment;
•
To interact with already existing initiatives at supranational, national and
regional level for supporting disruptive innovation, in particular those
managed by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) and
the EIB Group (EIB and EIF) and relevant aspects of the European
Research Council.
Members of EIC Advisory Board
-
Mark Ferguson, Entrepreneur, Science Foundation Ireland (Chair)
-
Herman Hauser, Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners (Vice-chair)
-
Kerstin Bock, CEO of Openers
-
Jo Bury, Managing Director of Flanders Institute of Biotechnology
-
Dermot Diamond, Principal Investigator: INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics,
Dublin City University
-
Laura González Estéfani, Founder and CEO at TheVentureCity
-
Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chair Siemens AG, Chair A P Moller Maersk A/S
-
Ingmar Hoerr, Co-founder and CEO of CureVac
-
Fredrik Horstedt, Vice president of utilisation Chalmers University of
Technology
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Heidi Kakko, Partner of BaltCap Growth Fund
-
Bindi Karia, European Innovation Expert + Advisor, Connector of People and
Businesses
-
Anita Krohn Traaseth, Former CEO Innovation Norway
-
Jerzy M. Langer, Physicist, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Physics of the
Polish Academy of Sciences
-
Ana Maiques, Chief Executive Officer, Neuroelectrics
-
Marja Makarow, Biochemistry/molecular biology, director of Biocenter Finland
-
Valeria Nicolosi, Chair of Nanomaterials and Advanced Microscopy
-
Carlos Oliveira, Serial Entrepreneur, Innovator, Executive President of José
Neves Foundation (Farfetch founder)
-
Bruno Sportisse, Chair and CEO at INRIA
-
Kinga Stanislawka, Managing Partner and Founder of Experior Venture Fund
-
Roberto Verganti, Innovation academic, former RISE group
-
Martin Villig, Co-founder of Bolt (formerly Taxify)
-
Yousef Yousef, CEO of LG Sonic
Contact(s):
Main contact person:
, TF.1, COV2
Contributor(s):
,
, COV2
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Annex I. Summary CV of
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