Interview: EISMEA Director Jean-David Malo takes stock of the EIC's achievements to date, and challenges ahead

At the recent EIC Summit, we caught up with Jean-David Malo, Director of EISMEA, the European Commission’s executive agency for the European Innovation Council and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).It was a timely encounter, coinciding with the release of the EIC Impact Report 2023, which highlighted that the total value of the overall portfolio of EIC-supported companies has now reached almost €70 billion (download the PDF here) and our own unveiling of the first 48 deep tech scale-ups to be supported by the EIC Scaling Club from earlier this week. We asked him about the purpose of the annual EIC event, which was part of the fifth edition of the European Research and Innovation Days. and some of the key take-aways for him both in terms of the impact report and the learnings from meeting several hundreds of stakeholders on-site in Brussels.Malo didn't shy away from highlighting the things that can be improved and accelerated within the EIC itself, while also taking stock of the achievements to date.Of course, we couldn't resist asking him about the EIC Scaling Club as well, to give more colour on why this initiative fits into the overall E(I)C plans.Enjoy!