HUNGARY: Hungary wins bid to host the new European Institute of Innovation and Technology

Record ID: 777587

  • Title: HUNGARY: Hungary wins bid to host the new European Institute of Innovation and Technology
  • Date: 19th June 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) DIRECTOR OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, GABOR PALINKAS, SAYING: "The aim of the Technological Institute is realising a triangle: Integrating science, research and development, and innovation. In this area, Europe is lagging behind the USA, and Hungary is lagging behind even Europe. I think the opportunity that Hungary will be able to take a more intensive part in the management of European research and development will be an important incentive for Hungarian research and development."
  • Embargoed: 4th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA7EA4TCTMA8DT8BYC2NU9LBIGC
  • Story Text: Despite competition from Poland and other countries in the region, Budapest has won a bid to host the centre for a new European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
    The Hungarian capital has won its bid to host the European Union's new Institute of Innovation and Technology.
    In a statement released on Wednesday (June 18) Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany said it was a great success for the country.
    The EU intends to set up a European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) to close the competitiveness gap with the United States and had earlier named the university complex in and around Budapest's Technical University on the Danube as a possible location.
    Poland had campaigned hard for the institute to be based in the Polish city of Wroclaw but in the end lost out to Budapest.
    Speaking to the media last week, the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Jozsef Palinkas, was optimistic about Hungary's chances.

    "In the newly joined countries there are no European institutions or not many. And I think that, that also contributed to the decision or the support of those countries, and I think that also Hungary, Hungarian diplomacy and Hungarian science diplomacy was doing a good job to convince people that Hungary will be a suitable place for such an institution," he said.
    The Chemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has long had a tradition of innovation, especially in the field of pharmaceuticals. Its director, Gabor Palinkas hopes that the new EU institute will help to develop innovation in Hungary in other areas as well.

    "The aim of the Technological Institute is realising a triangle: Integrating science, research and development, and innovation. In this area, Europe is lagging behind the USA, and Hungary is lagging behind even Europe. I think the opportunity that Hungary will be able to take a more intensive part in the management of European research and development will be an important incentive for Hungarian research and development," he said.
    The EIT is the brainchild of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who had envisaged a 2.3 billion euro campus-based institute to rival the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
    Climate change and renewable energy would be among leading areas of study at the EIT. But research institutes of a wide-range are expected to be involved in the work of the new centre.
    Faced with scepticism on the part of Britain and other EU countries, the EIT will have a more modest start as a link to a network of universities and private research bodies.
    The European parliament diluted the Commission's proposal by ditching a provision for the EIT to award its own degrees and also insisted the new body start with a pilot phase budgeted at about 300 million euros.
    But Hungary hopes the centre will be able eventually to compete with other large centres across the world.

    "This will be a centre of a really large organisations and I hope that it will be a possibility or possible competitor of those large technological centres like MIT or Caltech or really the emerging new such type of institutes in in China, in in Japan," said Jozsef Palinkas said.
    Palinkas added that he hoped the centre will revitalise the Hungarian science and attract successful Hungarian and foreign scientists from around the world. The Hungarian cloning specialist Andras Dinnyes returned to Hungary a few years ago after having worked in leading institutes around the world, Palinkas hopes many more will now follow.
    Among the criteria for winning the bid were that the host should be a new member country and not already have an EU agency.
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