” ““Innovation is a must to increase the competitiveness of Europe in the world. So we need a space of innovation acting as a catalyst of excellence”. The European Institute of Technology “has been designed to attract talent”. José Manuel Barroso, president of the EU Commission, presented the plan in Brussels today to create the European Institute of Technology, which should “pull down the wall that still separates research, education and business”. To organise the European Institute of Technology, which, if approved by the EU Council and Parliament, could be up and running in 2008 the Executive Committee “is thinking of a small central facility and a network of communities of knowledge and innovation that will carry out its tasks”. The budget allocation planned for 2008-2013 amounts to 2.4 billion euros, funded partly by the EU and partly by private investors. According to Barroso, “the Institute will enable Europe to respond to the challenges of a world economy which is based on knowledge and is more and more global”. And he concluded: “I hope the heads of state and government will pledge their political support to this new beacon of innovation in Europe at the informal summit of Lahti” on Friday 20th October.
