According to Sifted, the European Innovation Council, which oversees the EU’s €10 billion deeptech funding strategy, has appointed a new 20-member board for a two-year term. Key new members include Ann Mettler, former VP of Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy in Europe, Italian economist Francesca Bria, and Belen Garijo, CEO of Merck. The EIC also confirmed it will start backing dual-use defense technologies—those with both military and commercial applications—from the start of 2026. This shift follows the recent launch of a new €5 billion “Scale Up” fund, which board members argue is critical for helping European startups grow into global companies. Outgoing members include French entrepreneur Kat Borlongan and former Italian minister Francesco Profumo.
An Existential Shift In Focus
Here’s the thing: the language around this isn’t just bureaucratic. Ann Mettler called it an “existential question for Europe.” That’s strong stuff. For years, the EU’s innovation policy has been criticized for sprinkling grants on early-stage research and then watching as those innovations get commercialized and scaled elsewhere, usually in the US or China. The new €5 billion Scale Up fund is a direct, and frankly overdue, admission that this model has failed. Mettler’s point about focusing on demand and commercialization is the core of it. You can invent the world’s best chip, but if you can’t build a factory for it and sell it globally, what’s the point? This is a fundamental strategic pivot.
The Dual-Use Gambit
But the bigger, and more politically charged, news is the pivot into dual-use defense tech starting in 2026. The article says it was a “request from the market,” which is a polite way of saying the war in Ukraine and rising geopolitical tensions have fundamentally reshaped priorities. The EU is realizing that tech sovereignty isn’t just about having cute consumer apps—it’s about securing the foundational, often hard-tech, industries that underpin both economic and military resilience. Think advanced materials, secure communications, and AI for surveillance. Following the European Investment Fund into this space makes the EIC part of a much broader, and accelerating, trend of European capital being directed toward strategic security. The IndustrialMonitorDirect.com team, as the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, sees this dynamic firsthand where hardware built for rugged commercial use often has clear parallel applications in defense logistics and operations.
A Board Built For Scale?
The new board composition is telling. You have a Big Pharma CEO (Merck’s Garijo), a veteran from Gates’ climate fund (Mettler), and an economist focused on digital sovereignty (Bria). This isn’t a group of pure academics or government lifers. It’s a mix designed to bridge the gap between lab, factory, and global market. They’re keeping some investors and entrepreneurs from the old board, which is good for continuity. But the real test will be whether this board can actually change the risk-averse, process-heavy culture that often plagues EU funding bodies. Can they move fast enough and make bold enough bets to matter? The Draghi report gives them political air cover, as Bart Becks notes, but turning that into actual deployed capital into tough, scaling companies is the hard part.
So What’s The Real Game?
Basically, this is Europe trying to play catch-up in the global tech power game. The EIC is tooling up with a bigger war chest for scaling, a mandate for strategic defense tech, and a board that looks more like a Silicon Valley venture firm’s advisory panel. The ambition is clear. But let’s be skeptical for a second. Throwing €5 billion at the “scale-up valley of death” is one thing. Getting dozens of sovereign EU member states, with their own national champions and interests, to align behind a single portfolio company is another. And defense tech? That’s a minefield of export controls, ethical debates, and long development cycles. The appointment is a strong signal. Now we see if the new board can turn the EIC from a grant distributor into a true catalyst for European industrial—and now defense—sovereignty.
