European Association of Innovation Consultants
EAIC
The European Association of Innovation Consultants aims to elaborate synergies among consultancy companies in Europe.
ID: 552465444550-96
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Christian Ehler (Member of the European Parliament)
19 Jun 2024 · European innovation policy
Response to Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT)
24 Jan 2024
The European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC), comprising a diverse group of professionals at the forefront of fostering innovation, strongly advocates for the inclusion of tax incentives for Research and Development (R&D) within the BEFIT - Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation. EAIC Members are uniquely positioned to offer invaluable insights and expertise on how tax incentives can effectively catalyse R&D activities. EAIC welcomes the opportunity to provide comments on the Proposal for a Council Directive on Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT) (COM(2023)532 final). EAIC recognises the relevance to introduce a common corporate tax system within the EU and the opportunity that arises with the BEFIT framework. It is time to position innovation within the new framework for taxation at the European level. To do so, EAIC calls on the European Union decision makers to build on the formerly proposed CCCTB (Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base) to ensure that the European Union takes a leap in innovation. Due to the magnitude of the challenges Europe faces, and the geopolitical keys at play, the European Union must take advantage of this opportunity. The BEFIT is designed to create a more stable and predictable business environment in the EU. By reducing fiscal uncertainty, companies can plan long-term investment decisions and their R&D activities with more confidence. Therefore, it is important that the BEFIT proposal includes incentives for R&D, recovering part of the proposal for the CCCTB. This inclusion would allow BEFIT to offer an opportunity to improve the investment environment in Europe. EAIC recommends to: 1. Introduce in BEFIT the same tax incentive scheme for investment in innovation incorporated in the CCCTB proposal i.e an optional tax deduction which allow companies to deduct up to 50% of their R&D expenses incurred in the EU from their tax base. 2. Introduce in BEFIT specific incentives for investment in start-ups, as included in the CCCTB proposal, such as an additional incentive to deduct all their R&D costs (100%). 3. Invite EU Member States to promote and facilitate legal certainty in the application of fiscal incentive schemes for innovation, as well as stable and predictable budgets. 4. Establish the exclusion of tax benefits for R&D from the calculation of the prior taxable base on which this effective minimum tax rate is calculated, regarding the so called Pillar Two EU Directive (2022/2523) on ensuring a global minimum level of taxation for multinational enterprise groups and large-scale domestic groups in the Union. With a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the innovation landscape, EAIC stands as a relevant partner, ready to collaborate with policymakers to shape a tax framework that encourages and rewards investment in R&D.
Read full responseResponse to Interim evaluation of Horizon Europe
29 Jul 2022
The European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) comprises 53 members present across over 29 European Countries, they represent over 9400 professional consultants, helping their clients to innovate and fund their innovation. Altogether they accompany numerous applications to the various calls of Horizon Europe, for individual or in consortia candidatures. They represent for instance 40% of successful applicants to the EIC Accelerator instrument. They are guiding applicants in the structuring, writing and online submission of proposals.
After over 15 months of experience with Horizon Europe for both individual and collaborative calls, EAIC can provide some constructive feed-back on the new Horizon Europe Programme and its application process which has slightly evolved since the previous Framework Programme H2020. With a view to contributing to the European Commission’s current interim review of Horizon Europe programme, a synthesis of EAIC member recommendations is provided below.
Oversubscription and excellence:
- Although the overall success rate of Horizon Europe calls has increased vs H2020, a number of calls are too open and the expectations created are far above from the EC capacity to fund excellent projects, we urge the commission to consider restricting the focus of topics when the budget available is not expected to meet a large part of applicants' expectations, risking to demotivate new comers.
- For actions receiving 15 points out 15 but not being funded due to a lack of allocated budget we strongly recommend the EC to use all regulatory means possible to facilitate the transfer of budget from unused part of the programme by setting up an automatic scheme enabling to fund such excellent projects.
Collaborative calls application process:
- Generally, the structure of the application process and the format of the answer for collaborative Horizon Europe calls (IAs, RIAs or CSAs) remains the same as in Horizon2020 which is perceived positively.
- Improve instructions as regard the type of staff members can be included in the case of partners not having researcher staff or for non-technical partners, that could be included in projects.
- Length of proposals: we recommend to allow a length of 70 pages for the part B when the budget of projects foreseen goes beyond 10 million euros.
- We urge the commission and its agencies to review urgently the capacities of their IT infrastructure.
EIC Accelerator:
- The EIC Accelerator evaluation requires some further improvements, the GO / NO-GO process is potentially leading to some false negatives, we are suggesting several improvements to avoid such situations.
- We believe the EIC should go back to its original mission of a European sovereign investment mechanism, as initially foreseen by the European Parliament and European Council. The European Commission should remain the single decision-maker with regards to EIC equity funding.
Professional management of funded actions:
- Allow the participation of other entities, not just the coordinator, in Project Management activities.
- Allow the subcontracting of management tasks to professional experts with proven track records.
- Improve the quality of project management by promoting good project management practices as developed in our reply
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