IDEA League and EIT

1

• IDEA League and EIT
• 23rd January 2006
• European Parliament
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Henning
• Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• at the RWTH Aachen University

2
IDEA League and EIT

• Vision IDEA League
• It is the ambition of the IDEA League to play an
  active role in regaining Europes international
  preeminent position in science and technology by
  combining our resources of value and knowledge,
  specifically in research, education and
  innovation.
• In these key areas and enabling technologies, the
  IDEA partners have academic partnerships with a
  number of other world-class academic
  institutions, and strategic collaborations with a
  large number of leading industrial partners in
  key industries.
• The alliance consists of Imperial College London,
  TU Delft, ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen,
  ParisTech (Les Grandes Écoles de Paris) will
  join in 2006.

3
IDEA League

• Research
  Portfolio
• We are developing strategic collaborations in the
  field of
• Data, Information, and Knowledge to realise
  the potential of new science and technology
• in the management and understanding of
  information
• Energy to meet the increasing demands of the
  developed and developing nations
• Environment to develop sustainable modes of
  existence and industrial processing, and
• better understand the complex mechanisms that
  support us
• Healthcare to address the new demands that
  the demographic shift brings
• Transport to meet the need to transport
  safely persons and goods in densely populated
• areas at low cost and with low environmental
  impact and energy consumption.
• Our work in these areas is underpinned by
  enabling technologies in the filed of
• Communication Technology
• Computational and Mathematical Sciences
• Materials
• Nanotechnology

4
IDEA League

• Education Portfolio
• Our educational portfolio is focussed on our
  science and technology strengths with training at
  bachelors, masters and doctoral levels
• Our graduates are highly sought after in
  academic, industrial, commercial and governmental
  sectors.
• Collectively, the IDEA League has a total of
• approximately 63,000 students more than 8,500
  are registered on doctoral programmes
• the remainder are registered for bachelors and
  masters degrees selected from a total of more
  than 550 study programmes.
• We have jointly developed and implemented a
  number of academic and quality
• standards such as
• a set of common education quality management
  principles
• academic profiles for graduates
• mutual recognition of degrees (1st, 2nd and
  3rd cycle)
• student interchange via IDEA League
  scholarships.

5
IDEA League

• Technology Transfer
• All of the IDEA universities partners are
  committed to a research agenda that emphasises
  the application of research in industry, commerce
  and healthcare.
• Our technology transfer programmes are an
  essential part of this mission.
• Our success is illustrated by the high level of
  our industrial research funding (up to 30) and
  the number of spin-out companies we have
  established (a total of about 60 per year).
• Collectively, we have links to more than three
  quarters of the European Round Table of
  Industrialists, and with many more industries
  beyond this organisation.
• We also have close links with governmental
  organisations, such as our national health
  services.

6
IDEA League and EIT

• Cooperation with EIT
• We welcome the European Commissions initiative
  to establish a European
• Institute of Technology (EIT)
• We see the EIT as a virtual institution composed
  of a network of top technical universities. The
  IDEA League1 has a six-year track-record of
  collaboration between four university partners,
  each of which is the leading institution for
  engineering and technology within its respective
  country (THES World University Rankings, 2004 and
  2005)
• The IDEA partner share a common culture of
  first-class research that is science led and
  technology driven
• Building on this, our agenda is shaped by the
  needs and demands of society and industry
• Given our experience and expertise, we offer our
  highly successful partnership to become the
  nucleus of the EIT
• We envisage that such an EIT would rapidly become
  a world-beating concentration of scientific and
  technological research, education and
  technology-transfer activities.

7
Towards an EIT

• How to choose institutions to participate in the
  EIT?
• The essential criteria of the aspiring
  institutions of an EIT network are
• scientific and technological excellence
• good relations to industry with strong
  involvement in technology transfer
• access to (large-scale) facilities
• sharing a vision of regaining Europes
  international position in science technology.
• How to make incentives for them to work together?
  
• Based on the given themes of societal needs and
  market demands projects will be generated.
• Communication will play an important part, i.e.
  identifying people, organizing workshops,
  fostering mobility of staff and students not only
  across institutions but also with industry.
• The development of concepts for seed projects
  is anticipated leading to large
• projects with industrial involvement.
• How to get industry involved?
• Besides industrial links of the institutions at
  high level, there are existing research
  collaborations
• which can be built upon.

8
Towards an EIT

• Conclusions
• With its position in science technology and its
  longstanding record of working together, the IDEA
  League presents an ideal nucleus on which to
  found the EIT. It is truly European. It has
  international academic standing, expertise in
  technology transfer and strong industrial
  partnerships.
• An EIT should be a 'virtual place' where societal
  needs meet scientific thinking and technological
  expertise, leading to a new generation of young
  people capable of applying the best knowledge
  available to issues that are critical for the
  future well-being of mankind.
• This means that an EIT should emphasis
  disciplinary depth and excellence coupled to a
  breadth of vision to enable the identification of
  innovative strategic interdisciplinary areas.
• The EIT should play an overarching role
  integrating the issue, discipline, thematic,
  industrial and economic drivers.