Conference at the European Parliament gathering key MEPs to review strengths and weaknesses of the final Horizon 2020 package and discuss what needs to be done next (full video here)

Talk from Hermann Hauser, serial entrepreneur and VC capitalist from Amadeus Capital Partners who helped built 100 + projects out of universities into successful companies)

NOTES

Most interesting talk on Getting Innovation to the Market and the suggestion that part of the Financial support for Innovation from Horizon2020 should a) not only be allocated to debt financing and b) to fund of funds that would select VC funds thus bringing diversity of investments.

• Starting European companies versus Helping them grow!
• No 1 issue in Europe -> Unemployment
• Innovation = Job creation
  • Big companies create wealth
  • Smaller ones create jobs at a faster rate!
• Innovation cannot be equal across countries.
• Different mecchanisms & expertise required depending on sectors.
• Innovation need to be supported by clusters.
• Important for EU countries to develop centers (e.g. UK Catapult centers) to take long term projects out of universities.
• Focus on World leading technologies with existing strong positions on which to build on « Not filling holes but building on mountains »
• 3 criteria rules -> Need the « Buy in » from industry
  • 1/3 industry, 1/3 Gvt, 1/3 Project financing + capability of the country to take advantage of it once product live (infrastructure, etc)
• Technology rarely a reason for company failure but Market readyness, Team, Money, etc)
• Equity funding more relevant to Innovative projects since they have no assets.

Horizon 2020 – Europe’s grand research funding scheme

Tweets on HORIZON2020