Earlier this month, the European Innovation Council and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Executive Agency (EISMEA) announced the closure of the EIC AI Platform, which was used for designing, submitting, and negotiating applications for EIC Accelerator calls.
EISMEA cited a “contractual dispute” as the reason for the decision and also pointed to the “complexity of the platform and process” as contributing factors.
The Innovation Loop (TIL), the company that developed the platform in response to EISMEA’s request, provided its perspective on the matter.
EIC AI platform shutdown: TIL’s response
TIL believes that the EIC’s sudden decision to revoke all access to the platform without notice has had a damaging impact on applicants.
EISMEA published a new submission date and templates, which require applicants to redesign and rewrite their proposals in less than three weeks.
TIL argues that this situation could have been avoided if EISMEA had restructured the data from proposals prepared on the EIC AI Platform into any new template validated by EISMEA.
However, TIL says it stands with applicants and believes that the EIC AI Platform fully reflects EISMEA’s choices and ambition. This is aligned with EIC work programme objectives.
“Our repeated requests to EISMEA to undertake a review of the platform, with transparency and in co-creation with users, have remained unanswered for over a year and a half,” says TIL in response.
TIL also disputes EISMEA’s explanations, which they believe are factually false.
After signing a two-year contract (Innospace contract) in December 2022 to respond to the EIC’s ambition to create a “Virtual European Silicon Valley,” EISMEA put the Innospace project on hold for reasons never precisely formulated.
This contract included the development of the first-ever European innovation social network and marketplace supported by artificial intelligence, as well as the continuation and review of the EIC AI Platform.
Facing this blocking situation, TIL initiated the termination procedure of the Innospace contract due to EISMEA’s failure to comply with its obligations on March 24, 2023.
“Consequently, it is with surprise that we have learned that the European Commission on 2 June 2023 justifies its decision to interrupt the EIC AI Platform by a contractual dispute, and implicitly by criticisms of the initial platform expressed by the applicants and in the EIC Board statement of 21 March 2023 on the complexity of the EIC AI Platform,” adds TIL in the statement.
TIL also pointed out several EIC Board statements, including:
- “the EIC AI Platform has allowed the successful evaluation of over 8000 short proposals (Step 1) and over 5000 business plans/full proposals (Step 2) from European tech startups, which was its main objective”
- “support for a specific EIC Accelerator application process based on a business case rather than a traditional R&D grant proposal”
- “the existing Commission IT tools [ therefore not the EIC AI Platform ] were not suitable”
- “While the EIC AI platform has achieved its primary objectives to date, it is now time for a major improvement of the platform.”
However, this EIC Board statement was adopted based on an external report that was poorly commanded, and only 7 out of more than 33,000 users of the platform were interviewed, reveals TIL in reply to the above mentioned statements.
“We replied to this report on March 25, 2023, highlighting its many methodological flaws. Our response and proposals following this report were never communicated by EISMEA to the EIC Board, nor to the EIC Program Committee. We however also indicated that we were waiting and ready to implement changes requested by EISMEA, as foreseen by the Innospace contract,” states TIL.
“As of today 13 June 2023, we can identify no other understandable reason for EISMEA’s decision than internal conflicts within the European Commission, which is beyond us as a private company,” adds TIL.
“In the end, we are still wondering about the legitimate reason for interrupting the platform, and whether EISMEA’s decision was worth disrupting the programme, not respecting its contractual obligations at the risk of being forced to pay substantial financial compensation, and not delivering Innospace’s objectives,” concludes TIL.
Read the orginal article: https://siliconcanals.com/news/til-calls-out-on-eic-ai-platform-shutdown/
