HealthManagement, Volume 9 - Issue 4, 2009
Swedish Presidency Seeks to Strengthen Knowledge Triangle
The Swedish presidency plans to encourage interaction between education, research and innovation by promoting better coordination between these three sides of the 'knowledge triangle'. Of the three points of the triangle, the presidency plans to focus specifically on the role of education.
Dr. Jan Potocnik described the complex role that must be played by European universities in building the knowledge triangle, and emphasised the need for stronger collaboration at European level in terms of funding agencies, student mobility, mutual recognition of curricula, European doctoral training, professionalisation of university managers, development of a code of good practice for international cooperation and opening up recruitment to international staff and students.
On the subject of organising, connecting and funding graduate schools in the EU, he cited the example of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), whose Knowledge and Innovation Community, he said, is a concept that emerging institutions should consider following.
Dr. Potocnik also reiterated his belief, expressed earlier this year at the Competitiveness Council, that more strategic and relevant research funding could be better achieved if funding institutions had in hand common guidelines for 'responsible external research funding'. The Commissioner stressed that for the research base to thrive in Europe, its universities must remain dynamic; universities, research institutions and business should make every effort to interact, cooperate, compete, develop and excel. 'Innovation capacity allied to higher education capability - this is what makes the world go round these days,' he said. According to Dr. Kranz, Sweden has called for a shift in the EU budget from agricultural subsidies to research investments. “But we also need each Member State to invest more, because the pluralism of research funding on the European continent is one of our big advantages,' he said.
For more information, please visit:
• Swedish Presidency of the European Union: http://www.se2009.eu
• European Institute for Innovation and Technology: http://eit.europa.eu
