Viewpoint: EIT can help lead the way out of the COVID-19 crisis
Republished by ECBN from: Science Business
Long-term stalwart of the European Parliament’s industry, research and energy committee Paul Rübig, is now bringing his expertise to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which he says is poised to play a key role to play in helping Europe’s entrepreneurs recover from the COVID-19 crisis. EIT is, he says, “a very good set-up” that can follow “the newest needs in society”. The structure also allows the EIT to think long-term, Rübig, says, pointing to its plans to establish a new Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC), focussed on Europe’s decimated cultural and creative industries sector. Rübig, who joins the board of EIT this month after 23 years in the European Parliament, has long been a proponent of a creating a cultural industries KIC in the EIT. In his last term as an MEP from 2014 – 2019, he was a member of the European Parliament Culture and Creative Industries group, which lobbied for the sector’s interests.
While culture and creative industries may in many senses represent Europe’s past glories, it is also a hugely innovative sector. And as the lockdown closure of museums, theatres, concert halls, arts centres and book shops underlines, it is also a really important part of Europe’s economy, supporting tourism, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, and contributing to the health and wellbeing of citizens.
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