(BRUSSELS)
This year the 10th European Innovation Summit will be held in Brussels.
To find out more about what to expect, I spoke with Roland Strauss, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Summit organisers, Knowledge4Innovation (K4I) a platform that brings together innovation leaders from the private, public and academic sectors. We discussed EIS and the EU Top 50 Startup/Scale-up festival that runs alongside it.
On the EU Top 50, I asked in what ways it will be different to the previous one?
Roland said: “Europe’s innovation agenda is long-term, and we will continue and build on last year’s discussions and experience. Earlier this year the European Commission tabled several proposals that will determine the support innovation and innovators will get during the years between 2021-2027 from the EU. For Horizon Europe, the next Framework Programme for research and Innovation, 100 bn Euros have been proposed by the Commission and the European Parliament will most likely suggest an even higher budget. And the support from the next ERDF and Cohesion Policy that currently helps creating 140.000 start-ups and bringing 15.000 new products to the market can be expected to be even more important. The Common Agricultural Policy, the other big budget line, is also likely to increase substantially with investments in agricultural innovation.
“Based on last year’s experience with the EUtop50 startups competition and conference we are now preparing the 2018 edition involving not only young founders but also R&D innovators from Horizon 2020 and university technology developers from across Europe. A particular highlight this year will be a selection of Europe’s future innovation leaders, young talented entrepreneurs that developed breakthrough technologies and raised substantial amounts of venture capital.”
The full interview with Roland will be published in the upcoming edition of Impact Innovators – and will be followed by a podcast interview with the K4I chief next month.
EIS 2018 takes place in and around the European Parliament from 26 to 30 November.
We will be producing the official EU Top 50 magazine in collaboration with the organisers. Check out the 50 showcased in last year’s edition.
