Competitiveness: "Europe has to take leadership and ensure we can act more autonomously" (R-J Smits)

"More than ever before, Europe has to take leadership, and ensure that as a continent, we can act more autonomously", states Robert-Jan Smits, President of EuroTech and President of Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands), during the EuroTech Annual Event 2025, held at the Bavarian Permanent Representation in Brussels on 19/03/2025.

He is speaking at a round table entitled "Strong R&I for a strong industry: How to secure Europe’s competitive edge". He advocates that the event bears witness to the fact that the universities of technology and engineering want to contribute "in a big way to the European agenda".

Gerhard Kramer, Senior Vice-President for Research & Innovation at Technical University of Munich (Germany), says that "other places are ahead in integrating an entrepreneurial mindset into academia. Many German universities are just starting to scratch the surface of this. We’re not talking about making 50% of students entrepreneurs, but even at 1 to 5%. If you have 50,000 students, that’s already several thousand engaged in this activity. There’s definitely room…