Today, the EIT announced the winners of the call for EIT Health and EIT Raw Materials, integrated European partnerships of higher education, business and research aiming to tackle societal challenges across Europe. "Ageing societies and our dependence on raw materials pose serious challenges to the EU. Science and innovation have a crucial part to play in tackling them. I am therefore very pleased to see the EIT getting these two strategic partnerships underway,” said Tibor Navracsics, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.
The winners of the EIT’s 2014 Call for Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) Proposals are the pan-European consortia InnoLife and RawMatTERS, bringing together more than 150 partners from 20 EU Member States. "The outstanding factor behind the decision was the potential of the winners to create innovations needed to address critical challenges for today’s societies. EIT Health and EIT Raw Materials are excellent partnerships that will generate impact, in terms of growth and job creation, which are at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy and President Juncker’s Commission top priorities,” said Martin Kern, EIT Interim Director.
“With the support of the EIT and funds from Horizon 2020, these partnerships have a great opportunity to attract the best researchers, students and entrepreneurs. This will be crucial to ensure that they contribute to our efforts to improve Europe’s innovation capacity and competitiveness,” said Commissioner Navracsics.
Up to 4 million EUR from the EIT in the first year
“Our task is now to rapidly launch EIT Health and EIT Raw Materials so that they can deliver innovation and growth", added Martin Kern. In order to facilitate a rapid and smooth start during their first year, the EIT will provide each of the winners with a start-up grant of up to 4 million EUR. The KICs are expected to become fully operational shortly after having signed a seven-year Framework Partnership Agreement with the EIT in 2015.
The EIT will launch the next call for KIC Proposals in 2016 focusing on Food4Future and Added-value Manufacturing with a further call tentatively planned for 2018 addressing Urban Mobility.
EIT to date: 450 business ideas, 215 graduates and growing
The EIT is an independent EU body set up in 2008 to spur innovation and entrepreneurship across Europe to overcome some of its greatest challenges. It brings together leading universities, research labs and companies to form dynamic cross-border partnerships – Knowledge and Innovation Communities, KICs - that develop innovative products and services, start new companies, and train a new generation of entrepreneurs.
The first three KICs on climate change, ICT and sustainable energy were selected in 2009 (Climate-KIC, EIT ICT Labs and KIC InnoEnergy). The EU has decided to expand the EIT’s activities over the 2014 to 2020 period within the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and to increase its budget to € 2.7 billion.
To date, the EIT’s KICs bring together more than 500 leading partners from all over Europe, for the first time fully integrating business, research and higher education. Since 2010, the KICs have incubated more than 450 business ideas and created 75 innovative start-ups. 165 knowledge transfers and adoptions have taken place and 61 new products and services have been launched. The first 215 students have graduated with EIT labelled degree programmes.