RI-LINKS2UA - Strengthening Research and Innovation Links towards Ukraine

Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, set out his ambition to create a European Innovation Council in June 2015. The aim is to boost the impact of EU research and innovation programmes by stimulating innovative start ups and SMEs to grow into world-beating businesses. It will focus on support for innovative firms and entrepreneurs with the potential to scale up rapidly to become the game-changers of the future, helping spur growth and new jobs.

Commissioner Moedas said: "Europe can do more for innovators, especially those with the ambition and capability to create new markets. EU support for innovation must be open to start ups and innovators with the potential to scale up, and reflect their needs. That is why I am setting up this High Level Group, and invite our leading innovators to put their names forward."

The call for applications announcement can be found on the Horizon 2020 Participant Portal. The deadline for applications is 27 October 2016. The High Level Group will have up to 12 members who would start work by the end of 2016.

Background

The European Commission ran a public call for ideas between 16 February and 29 April 2016 to gather stakeholders' views on disruptive, market-creating innovation, on gaps in the current innovation support landscape and on the potential remit of a European Innovation and a report on the results of this call was published in July 2016.

The establishment of the High Level Group is another step towards a potential European Innovation Council. A number of pilot actions could be launched in 2017 under Horizon 2020, the current EU funding programme for research and innovation, which runs until 2020. A full-fledged EIC could be rolled out in a successor programme to Horizon 2020.

More info

• European Innovation Council

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?pg=newsalert&year=2016&na=na-290916-1