The renowned European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) organized a seminar on the establishment of Knowledge and Innovation Communities last week in Bratislava.
Peter Apers, scientific director of the UT research institute, Center for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT), attended the seminar and saw opportunities for the three TUs. Chairman of the Executive Board Anne Flierman was on the way to the Slovak capital, but due to bad weather his plane was grounded in Düsseldorf.
Apers is also the director of NIRICT (Netherlands Institute for Research on ICT), a 3TU organization with over seventy chairs from Twente, Delft and Eindhoven. `We do not only have this collaboration,' says Apers. `We work together with knowledge institutions, companies, top technological institutes, and all these parties have a good interaction with each other, and they also have ideas on the implementation of innovation. NIRICT is what we call an ecosystem because of the close cooperation and co-location in the Netherlands; everything is so close together here.'
`Based on the reactions of those attending, I could conclude that in the Netherlands, we are among the first with a system like this. For instance, consider the spin-offs that the UT generates and the TOP-regulations we use for these. This was praised by other countries, just like the minor entrepreneurship. The UT has a head start when it comes to the field of entrepreneurship because everything with the EIT is about innovation. It's the central objective.'
`The EIT hopes to incorporate education in the plans. With so-called KICs that should be able to work even better. These knowledge centers will exist of heavily integrated partnerships, based on existing relations between parties. The starting point is that a KIC should exist of at least three participants from two different EU countries. Each knowledge center (which can count on a lot of European subsidies) will be built on a certain theme. The first three of which a call was opened are: sustainable energy, mitigation and adaption of climate change, and future information society. `With NIRICT, we want to propose to be appointed as a KIC. The TU/e will be formally leading, but it is a 3TU proposal, so the UT is involved as well.'
