By Aisha Labi

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology, conceived as Europe's version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is slowly beginning to take shape, although with little resemblance to the flagship institution that was first envisioned. Instead, the fledgling organization now consists of clusters of institutions, including but not limited to universities, linked by their collaborative work on overarching themes, such as climate change and energy.

In 2006, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, formally unveiled plans for the establishment of a new institution to foster European innovation and research. The proposal immediately faced skepticism and opposition, especially from academics who questioned the wisdom of diverting money from the European Union's research and education budget toward a new institution. Some critics saw the plan as a misguided pet project of Mr. Barroso, for whom closing the innovation gap between Europe and the United States and key Asian economies through research and development has long been a policy priority.

The original conception of the EIT—as the institution is informally referred to in deliberate evocation of MIT—as a single institution was long ago abandoned, as was the proposal that it would be financed with nearly $4-billion for its initial five years of operation. Instead, it was decided that the EIT would consist of a network of clusters known as Knowledge and Innovation Communities, with each cluster incorporating universities, businesses, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations, and each taking on a shape and structure of its own. The European Union's initial financing for the project is less than $400-million for its initial five-year phase, which is intended to make up only about a fourth of each cluster's budget. The rest has been committed by other sources, including the companies that are key partners in each of the networks.

The first three Knowledge and Innovation Communities, selected in December, were presented last month in an official event at which details about the structure and membership of each were spelled out. The clusters include one focused on climate-change mitigation and adaptation, one devoted to sustainable energy, and a third dedicated to the "future information and communication society." The directorate of the EIT has taken up offices in Budapest and, together with the fledgling knowledge communities, the organization is taking on a discernible form. This summer, the first formal program, organized by the climate-change cluster, will begin, involving some 50 master's and doctoral students who will spend time in Paris, London, and Zurich.

Gérard de Nazelle, who in September was named the EIT's first director, has a doctorate in physics but comes from a career in industry. His corporate background is evident in his emphasis on how the new institute will foster the entrepreneurship that is at the heart of its mission. "In Europe, we have a number of world-class universities, businesses, and research institutions," he says, "but we do acknowledge that Europe has been lacking in terms of innovation." It is essential, he says, that the EIT's knowledge communities "are to be run as a businesses, and that they have a kind of operating culture built up on private business practices."

By bringing together people from disparate fields and backgrounds in the new clusters, under strong, corporate-style leadership, he believes that the EIT will serve as a "catalyst" for the kind of innovation that has not flourished as freely in Europe as in the United States.

Early Opposition From Academics

Mr. de Nazelle emphasizes that innovation can flow from anywhere in the "knowledge triangle" of universities, research centers, and businesses, and that the role of the EIT is primarily to "bring these three worlds together." But for many academics, the notion apparently underpinning the EIT's mission, that universities have a limited role to play in fostering innovation, has rankled.

John Smith, who is deputy secretary general of the European University Association, which represents more than 800 European rectors' conferences and individual institutions, was one of the more critical early voices when the EIT was proposed. "Our core message is that education, research, and innovation are all functions of the university mission," he says. "In quite a lot of the policy discussion, you get the impression that universities are only providing the training component."

Although the university group remains concerned about what Mr. Smith describes as the "top-down, politically driven approach" that has characterized the initial phase of the EIT, the association has shifted from an openly critical stance to focusing on open dialogue with the new institution, to help shape its future role. "We're trying to position this instrument in a way that it does not just duplicate what is already going on," Mr. Smith says.

The League of European Research Universities, which represents 22 of Europe's leading research-intensive universities, was also critical of the initial EIT proposals. Five of the group's members now have central roles in the new knowledge communities, and the organization has also shifted to a more supportive stance, Kurt Deketelaere, the league's secretary general said in an e-mail exchange.

Mary A. Ritter, pro-rector for international affairs at Imperial College London, says that she too was once skeptical about the EIT, but she now believes that the new organization could indeed play a crucial role in fostering innovation in Europe.

Imperial is a member of thea research universities' league and one of the founding institutions in the new climate-change community, which consists of nine universities across Europe; 10 corporations, including Cisco and Shell; and six regional groups that include governing councils and small and medium-sized enterprises. The entire cluster, which will receive $120-million in E.U. financing over four years, is structured around five colocationco-location centers—one in London based at Imperial, and others in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Ms. Ritter thinks the EIT will get results "by mixing research, innovation, and education, and integrating those three much more closely than is normally the case." She has "come around," she says, to thinking that the new structure offers innovative and unique ways of bringing the commercial sector together with higher education and research earlier than has been the norm in at universities. "We have a terrible tendency to do research and then look for ways to commercialize it," she says.

Questions About Degrees

One initial concern about the EIT was what the scope of its degree-granting authority would be and how this would align with degrees from existing institutions. The European University Association strongly opposed the notion of a stand-alone EIT degree. "We felt that it had to be the university partners" awarding any degrees that were to be conferred, Mr. Smith says, and that approach appears to have been embraced.

Each knowledge community will decide its own procedures, and the climate-change cluster has decided to award degrees from its home institutions, but with an added diploma supplement indicating that the degree was done as part of the EIT, Ms. Ritter says.

With the establishment of the first three knowledge communities, one of the next questions facing the EIT is how many more will be created when it next calls for proposals in 2013.

There are also concerns about financing. "The amount of E.U. money for the EIT is still very modest, and if the E.U. takes the EIT seriously, obviously this will have to change," Mr. Deketelaere of the European research-university association, said by e-mail.

Mr. de Nazelle, however, believes that over the next five years, the knowledge communities will become self-sustaining, without any E.U. funds. In the meanwhile, he says, "I believe firmly that we are going to make a difference. We are very confident that this will be a good catalyst for change."