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Tuesday, 23.04.2024, 13:54
EIT scales up support for innovators across Europe in 2020
The EIT's eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities
competed for EUR 500 mln and were evaluated against their strategies and
business plans for 2020, as well as their performance to date. Based on this,
the EIT Governing Board decided to allocate the following grants (in order of
their selection in 2009, 2014, 2016, and 2018*):
EIT Climate-KIC: EUR 78.4 mln
EIT Digital: EUR 66.2 mln
EIT InnoEnergy: EUR 77.8 mln
EIT Health: EUR 85.1 mln
EIT Raw Materials: EUR 81.7 mln
EIT Food: EUR 55.1 mln
EIT Manufacturing: EUR 26.8 mln
EIT Urban Mobility: EUR 28.8 mln
In addition, the EIT Governing Board also decided to
allocate EUR 30 mln to the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (EIT RIS) - the programme
that helps modest and moderate regions (according to the European
Innovation Scoreboard) to fully realise their innovation potential through the
sharing of good practice and experience from across the EIT Community. The EIT
RIS fund will be available to all EIT Innovation Communities that include EIT
RIS eligible activities in their 2020 Business Plans. The EIT Governing
Board also decided to allocate EUR 12.5 mln for joint activities
between Knowledge and Innovation Communities, as for example in the areas
of artificial intelligence and Skills 4 Future.
In addition, the EIT Governing Board put in place a Task
Force on enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education
institutions, in preparation for the EIT's role in Horizon Europe. The Task Force will be chaired by Patrick Prendergast, Member of the EIT Governing Board, and
will include representatives of the European Commission (DG EAC).
Dirk Jan van den Berg, Chairman of the EIT Governing
Board, said: 'I am very pleased to see the progress in the past year, which is
strongly based on the focused stewardship of the EIT's Governing Board. It is
crucial that the opportunities the EIT community offers innovators are
scaled-up across the whole of Europe. Why? This investment is not just to
create another product, or power another start-up; it's to bring about the
urgent need for more innovative European solutions at a much larger scale to
tackle pressing societal challenges.'
Martin Kern, EIT Director, added: 'The EIT is now Europe's proven innovation
engine and 2020 will see strong impact from our eight Knowledge and Innovation
Communities, based on their submitted plans. Our results clearly show that the
EIT's investment delivers and turns ground-breaking ideas into products and
services for a greener, healthier, more sustainable Europe. We particularly
look forward to scaling up our support for innovators and entrepreneurs in
countries where EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities have a limited
presence. I would like to thank the EIT Governing Board Members for their
strong strategic steering of the EIT community.'
Investing in what works
The 2020 funding will step up activities for entrepreneurs, innovators, and students, including business creation and acceleration services, entrepreneurial educational programmes and innovation-driven research projects. These activities have been shown to work, delivering tangible impact for Europe. In 2020, the EIT Community plans to power 1000 start-ups and scale-ups and launch more than 360 new products and services to contribute to Europe's efforts of tackling global challenges.
More than 900
students are expected to graduate from EIT labelled master and doctoral
programmes, strengthening the pool of talented and entrepreneurially-minded
change agents eager to transform their best ideas into solutions for Europe. It
is foreseen that in 2020 alone, ventures supported by the EIT-Community will
raise over EUR 400 mln in external capital.
Since the EIT was set up in 2008, it has created Europe's
largest innovation community, with more than 1 000 partners and 50
innovation hubs. This has delivered support to more than 2 000 start-ups
and scale-ups, created more than 6 100 jobs and more than 900 new
products and services. More than 2200
students have graduated from EIT-labelled master and doctoral programmes.
To date, EIT-supported ventures have raised more than EUR 1.5 billion in
external capital.