Commission brings in top innovators to advise on a potential European Innovation Council
The European Commission has announced the 15 members of the new High Level Group that will advise the Commission on how to strengthen support for breakthrough, market-creating innovation in Horizon 2020 and future research and innovation programmes.
Carlos Moedas i, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: "I am delighted that we have managed to attract such a high-calibre group of innovators operating in different fields to 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 High Level Group of Innovators brings together leading personalities from across Europe with a wide range of expertise in business innovation, including entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors and other major players in the innovation ecosystem.
The members of the High Level Group
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-Nicklas Bergman, serial entrepreneur, deep tech investor and futurist
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-Martin Bruncko, Founder and Managing Partner of Steam Capital
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-Paddy Cosgrave, Founder and CEO of Web Summit and f.ounders
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-Gráinne Dwyer, CEO of Ludgate Hub
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-Hermann Maria Hauser, Entrepreneur, Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners
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-Marjolein Helder, Founder and CEO of Plant-e
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-Taavet Hinrikus, Co-Founder and CEO of TransferWise
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-Ingmar Hoerr, Co-Founder and CEO of CureVac
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-Bindi Karia, Start-up expert and advisor
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-Jana Kolar, CEO of CERIC-ERIC and governing board member of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT)
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-Carlos Oliveira, Entrepreneur, CEO of ebankIT, President of InvestBraga and Startup Braga, Non-Executive Director of Pathena
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-Jim Hagemann Snabe, Board of Trustees Member, World Economic Forum, and Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School
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-Kinga Stanisławska, Managing Partner and Founder of Experior Venture Fund
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-Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau, Special Envoy StartupDelta
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-Roxanne Varza, CEO of StationF
Background
The Group comprises 15 highly qualified, independent members appointed in their personal capacity. They 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.
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, in line with the recent Commission Communication "Europe's next leaders: the Start-up and Scale-up Initiative"(COM(2016) 733 final). The budget for actions covered under this preparatory phase amounts to about €2.5 billion. Secondly, the group will also make recommendations for the potential remit of a European Innovation Council concept under future EU programmes, to contribute to generating breakthrough innovations that can create and capture new markets.
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 i, which is due to report by June 2017.
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