Brussels Hopes European MIT Will Help It Catch America

By our editors Marcel aan de Brugh and Jeroen van der Kris

Translated By Wim de Vriend

February 23, 2005

NRC Handelsblad - The Netherlands - Original Article (Dutch)

With regard to technology and innovation, the U.S . is getting way ahead of Europe.   India and China are coming up from the rear.  That's why Chairman Barroso of the European Commission wants to establish a new technological institute. "Just another top-down approach."

Brussels/Rotterdam: Sooner or later the subject comes up. These days almost no gathering takes place in Brussels at which the Indians and Chinese are not discussed. They work harder, they are less expensive. And they are getting more clever all the time.

Yesterday, President Barroso of the European Commission presented Europe's answer to that danger from the east, or at any rate, part of the answer: a European Institute of Technology (EIT).  Not entirely coincidentally, the abbreviation looks a lot like that of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What MIT is to America , EIT should become to Europe.  "A flagship," Barroso calls it, of innovation and enterprise. Only with this will Europe quickly be able to maintain itself on the global marketplace.

MIT, or rather, a laboratory connected to MIT, recently signed a contract worth $3.17 billion with the American Department of Defense.  "Bill-ion!" Barrosa repeated with emphasis, and he repeated: "One laboratory!"  Such are the amounts involved outside Europe.  That's why he feels cooperation is mandatory in Europe.

But in Europe, cooperation often involves discussion.  In the case of new institutes, the first question usually is:  Where will it be?  In which country?  This is a discussion that the European Commission wants to avoid.  It proposes that EIT will not be in one big building. The Institute will consist of a board of directors, with a small support staff, made up of scientists at existing universities and enterprises, to divide the work among "knowledge communities" throughout Europe.  So EIT will be a governing board with a pocket full of money.

How much money and where will it come from?  Whenever Brussels starts something new, that's often the second question. But Barroso mentioned no amounts yesterday. All he said was that the money must come from Europe, from national governments, "and especially from enterprises. ... If the concept is good we will find the funds."

So far universities have not reacted with a great deal of enthusiasm to the plan, which has been circulating in rough draft form for some time.  Recently the League of European Research Universities, an organization of eighteen European universities that conduct a lot of research, which include Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden and Amsterdam, have issued a warning that having a single European Institute of Technology will reduce competition. And that's a bad thing, they feel.

"Europe already has one or two institutes that are just as good as MIT, and a lot more that could be as good, if they were financed better," Lord Patten, regent of Oxford University, told the Financial Times last week.

Professor L. Soete, director of the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, is also critical.  A network means more fragmentation anyway, and "that is exactly Europe's fundamental problem," he says.  In America, 90 percent of federal research money is distributed by a handful of organizations among about 300 universities. "In Germany alone, the federal government gives money to 300 universities," Soete says.  This doesn't produce excellence for Europe.  You get that by directing a lot of money to a limited number of institutions.  "Mass and focus, that's what creates excellence," says Soete. 

Professor R. Bernards, a molecular biologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, agrees with Soete.  "This is yet another top-down approach.  But the bureaucrats in Brussels are clueless about research, and about the areas where competitive research occurs."

In 2009 Barroso hopes to get started appointing the board of directors of EIT.  Prior to that time, government leaders will have to make the call.  And there has to be clarity about the money.  But yesterday Barroso didn't want to get into that.  EIT is a big idea, he said, just like Airbus was at one time. 

"If in Europe we always talk about budgets first, we will never come up with any new ideas."

Dispute Over E.U. Subsidies

The European Commission has not stuck to previous agreements concerning the distribution of subsidies. Whereas at first the daily management of Europe seemed to place much value on innovation and technological development, now it wants to give lots of money to economically lagging areas.

Thus writes Minister Brinkhorst (D66, Economic Affairs) in a letter sent to the Lower House of Parliament yesterday.  Brinkhoff reacts to the latest letter from the European commission concerning the distribution of subsidies throughout the Netherlands . It makes clear that the Commission wants to give a lot more money to areas that are lagging behind, like the three northern provinces, than The Hague wants to.  Over the next few years, Brussels wants to provide subsidies in the amount of 237 million euros to Friesland, Groningen and Drente.  The Cabinet wants to give no more than 84 million euros.

According to Brinkhorst, the Commission has "abandoned criteria, applied different measurements and added the additional criterion that regions' share of the present Dutch structural receipts may only deviate 25 percent up or down." According to the Economic Affairs Minister, this procedure deviates from the agreement of the European summit concerning the European budget of December 15 and 16.  More money for new technology and other innovation helps to achieve the goals of the so-called Lisbon strategy: to make Europe into the world's strongest economy.

Thursday of last week, Economic Affairs officials and officials from the European Commission had fruitless discussions with the provinces about the distribution of European subsidies.  The discussions are shortly to be continued.  With regard to the distribution of subsidies among the provinces, the Netherlands have the final say-so.

From the letter sent by the Commission to the Netherlands , it further appeared that the European budgets for regional development and social programs are being reduced by half.  On his Web log, however, Treasury Minister Zalm objects to the notion that The Netherlands will be receiving much less from Brussels.  He points out that The Netherlands is getting more money for research and development. "If we include all E.U. contributions and E.U.-receipts, the net position of the Dutch will improve considerably," according to Zalm.