IS A FRENCH AGENCY FOR BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATIONS COMING SOON?

The final report of Franco-German Task Force on Breakthrough Innovation was handed over to Roland Lescure, French Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Energy Sovereignty, Philippe Baptiste, French Minister for Higher Education, Research and Space, and Dorothee Bär, Germany´s Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space at VivaTech in Paris.

The report's core demand is: France should establish a dedicated breakthrough innovation entity designed from the outset to be operationally interoperable with SPRIND: similar empowerment of program managers, similar types of funding, similar speed of decision, similar solution-driven approach (starting from problems to be solved, not from projects to be supported), similar approach to intellectual property, and openness to all European candidates. This entity should build on existing ecosystems and complement the current instruments. Speed of launch will be key: the entity should start operating within months, not years.