How can visionary science bring innovation into society?

In the past decades, Europe has always been one of the world’s top leaders in science and technology. However, it has recently been lagging behind as it encounters roadblocks that obstruct its road to innovation.

Co-organised by the EC’s DG Connect and DG for Research and Innovation (RTD) and the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Innovative Enterprise Week Bucharest 2019 (June 19-21) was a monumental event for scientific experts, innovators, investors and policy makers to talk about the ways to address this problem.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) was given a chance to explain, at the event, the new dynamics which will support a visionary high-risk research line like the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Programme. This newly minted group is part of the Horizon Europe, the funding programme successor of Horizon 2020, which will act on a mission-based approach and thereby address the immediate challenges faced by European citizens. Two of EIC’s pilot funding schemes namely, Pathfinder and Accelerator, will provide scientists and researchers a smooth transition for them to turn innovative ideas into tangible results that are useful for society and for the market in Europe.

The FETFX team has asked nine FET experts, who spoke at the Innovative Enterprise Week Bucharest 2019, to answer the question that still lingers in people’s mind till today: How can visionary science bring innovation into society?

You can find the complete video interviews here:

• Q&A with Marta Calderaro, Italian H2020 ICT and FET National Contact Point (APRE based in Rome, Italy)
• Q&A with Rachel Armstrong, Professor of the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape in Newcastle University (United Kingdoms)
• Q&A with Orestis Georgiou, Director of Research at Ultrahaptics in Bristol (United Kingdoms)
• Q&A with Thomas Skordas, Director of the Digital Excellence and Science Infrastructure under European Commission’s DG Connect
• Q&A with Vladimír Bužek, Professor of the Institute of Physics in the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Slovakia)
• Q&A with Adrian Curaj, Director of the Center for Strategic Management and Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Politehnica University of Bucharest (Romania)
• Q&A with Fredrik Hörstedt, Vice President of Utilisation at the Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden)
• Q&A with Mina Teicher, Professor of the Department of Mathematics and Brain Research Center in Bar-Ilan University (Israel)
• Q&A with Lars Frølund, Research Director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)