Division 1.3 Synergies and complementarities with other policy and funding initiatives

The inter-relationships between research, innovation and higher education are increasingly being recognised within Union initiatives and programmes. There is great potential for mutually reinforcing actions at European, national and regional level. At Union level, the strategic framework provided by Horizon 2020 – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020) – will further ensure these synergies are fully exploited.

The EIT will strongly contribute to the objectives set out in Horizon 2020, in particular by addressing societal challenges in a complementary way to other initiatives in these areas. Within Horizon 2020, the EIT will be part of the "societal challenges" objective but following the approach of seamless interaction across objectives, it will also contribute to the "industrial leadership" objective by stimulating results-driven research and fostering the creation of high growth innovative SMEs. Finally, it will contribute to the creation of an "excellent science base" objective by fostering mobility across boundaries – of disciplines, sectors and countries – and by embedding entrepreneurship and a risk-taking culture in innovative post-graduates degrees.

The EIT will thereby significantly contribute to promoting the framework conditions that are needed to realise the innovative potential of Union research and to promote the completion of the European Research Area (ERA).

Moreover, the EIT brings a fully fledged and necessary education dimension to the Union's research and innovation policy. Via innovative, entrepreneurial education it plays an important bridging role between the research and innovation framework and education policies and programmes and provides the long term commitment needed to deliver sustainable changes in higher education. Notably through new, trans and interdisciplinary EIT-labelled degrees, awarded by participating higher education institutions in accordance with national rules and accreditation procedures, the EIT is leading a collaborative effort towards education for innovation with clear linkage to the broader European agenda for the modernisation of higher education institutions thereby promoting the European Higher Education Area.

Moreover, there are opportunities for mutually reinforcing interaction with the Union's Cohesion Policy by addressing the linkages between the local and global aspects of innovation. Co-location centres provide for cross-border collaboration and are well positioned to capitalise on various funding schemes from their respective regions. The co-location centres play a major role in strengthening the local-global connectivity of the KIC as a whole, including through close co-operation with regional authorities, in particular those involved in designing and delivering the Regional Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3). Furthermore, linkages between KICs and local cluster organisations could be strengthened to increase the involvement of SMEs in the activities of the KICs. While opportunities for synergies differ depending on the thematic area of a KIC, a number of initiatives and programmes at Union level seem particularly likely to offer benefits from cooperation and coordination. As the very concept of the EIT/KICs rests on adding value to existing European excellence, the KICs – present and future – will by definition seek to explore these synergies to a maximum. KICs are expected to add value to initiatives that may exist in the relevant areas, including Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs), European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Joint Programming Initiatives, a key instrument for addressing fragmentation in research, should provide the nucleus of the pan-European KIC research base, where appropriate. In turn, KICs can speed up and foster the exploitation of excellent public research pooled together by the JPIs, thereby addressing fragmentation in innovation. The Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs) and the newly established Public and Private Partnerships provide platforms for promotion of large-scale industry-driven research and enhance the development of major technologies. KICs can help to catalyse these major research investments to boost technology transfer and commercialisation and to develop new ventures within existing business via entrepreneurial talent. Through its knowledge triangle approach, the EIT will complement investment of the European Research Council (ERC) on world-class frontier research by addressing the whole innovation chain from ideas to application and exploitation and provide additional opportunities in innovation and exposure to entrepreneurship to 'Marie Sklodowska-Curie' researchers and 'Erasmus +' students to help foster the development of the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area.

The upcoming European Innovation Partnerships will provide overarching frameworks to facilitate alignment and smart synergies among supply and demand-driven research and innovation instruments and policies. The KICs can contribute to the EIPs through their distributed nature and on the ground experience, and in particular by developing the necessary human capital, educating key actors such as entrepreneurs and researchers, and identifying framework conditions and best practise on policy, regulatory or standardisation issues in their relevant sector.

In practice, opportunities for synergies will materialise in different ways, from KIC to KIC and challenge to challenge. Today, linkages are being developed at KIC level with other initiatives, varying according to the specificities of each KIC and its thematic area. In addition, the EIT should foster synergies and interaction of the KICs across the pillars in Horizon 2020 and with other relevant initiatives, while taking due note of the risk of overlaps.