Moedas appoints ‘high-calibre group of innovators’
The new High Level Group of Innovators that will advise on how to strengthen for breakthrough, market-creating innovation brings together leading personalities from across Europe with a wide range of expertise in innovation, the European Commission communicated today.
New approach to support innovation
According to Carlos Moedas these people will assist the Commission “in designing a new approach to supporting innovation under the working title of a European Innovation Council. I am confident that they will bring a vital user perspective, helping us to design an approach that is fit for purpose and targeted on boosting the quality of EU support for breakthrough, market-creating innovation on which Europe’s prosperity increasingly relies.”
The members of the High Level Group are entrepreneurs, investors, CEO’s and start-up experts from all over Europe. For example the Dutch prince Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, special Envoy of StartUpDelta as well as Taavet Hinrikus the CEO of peer-to-peer money transfer service TransferWise are part of the new High Level Group. More info on all the members here.
The members of the group were selected from 469 candidates who responded to a public call for expressions of interest, with the aim of ensuring high-level professional experience and a good balance in terms of skills, experience, knowledge, geographical diversity, gender and age.
Changes in Horizon 2020
The High Level Group will advise the Commission on a set of changes to be introduced in Horizon 2020 as a preparatory phase to better boost disruptive and market-creating innovation, and address gaps in the current innovation support landscape. These include the provision of bottom-up support targeting breakthrough innovation projects with the potential for scaling up.
The Group will hold its first meeting in March. It will draw on a wide range of stakeholder inputs including the results of a Call for Ideas carried out in 2016. It will feed into the work of the High Level Group on Maximising the Impact of EU Research and Innovation Programmes chaired by Pascal Lamy, which is due to report by June 2017.
