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A primer on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
Since its creation in 2008, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology has been a central cog in the EU’s innovation-driving machinery. It was set up to bring together universities, research centres
and companies to develop products and services—an area in which Europe sometimes lags behind its global competitors.
“Europe has often not been fast enough and that’s, I think, what we want to change,” says EIT director Martin Kern.
In 2019, the EIT distributed more than €420 million to EU member states, as well as over €23m to non-EU countries associated to the Horizon 2020 R&D programme. One of the main activities the EIT funds is innovation-driven research projects, making it a crucial resource for researchers interested in commercialisation.
But with its funding channelled through eight separate Knowledge and Innovation Communities, or KICs, it isn’t necessarily easy to know where to start. While the EIT sounds like a monolithic institution, it is in fact a network of more than 2,000 partners—including 269 higher education institutions and 310 research centres—and there are KICs for climate, digital, food, health, energy, manufacturing, raw materials and urban mobility.
Bottom-up
Outlining why the EIT is structured the way it is, Kern says: “We believe innovation happens bottom-up and that it’s best done by the people, the researchers, the entrepreneurs, the students and universities bringing up the ideas.” He adds that the KICs have a lot of freedom to set up their own strategies.
Each KIC also has a number of different hubs located throughout Europe, which are the first port of call for researchers interested in what the EIT has to offer. “So if you are a researcher in France working on new manufacturing 3D printing solutions, you go to the EIT Manufacturing office in Paris first,” Kern says.
He is keen to point out that the EIT offers much more than just funding. “It’s maybe the inverse of other programmes that offer one specific thing, like a grant or one type of support,” he says. “It’s the services, the connections, the ecosystem, the legal support and very often simply a quick validation of whether your business idea is actually a good one.”
Getting involved
Michal Gorzynski, head of impact at the EIT, explains that each KIC launches funding calls on an annual basis and that the topics are defined by the KICs themselves, based on market-driven need. The calls are published on the individual KIC websites as well as the central EIT site, and from next year they will also be published on the funding and tenders portal for Horizon Europe, the successor to Horizon 2020.
While calls are primarily aimed at partner organisations within KICs, they are also accessible to third-party applicants, Gorzynski says. But he strongly advises researchers to contact their nearest KIC hub before submitting a proposal. “Try to participate in the matchmaking events, in the info session—try to find out what proposals are under development,” he says, pointing out that different KICs also have different rules on eligibility.
“It’s good to partner with organisations that are KIC partners, whose knowledge can help to structure a proper application,” Gorzynski adds. Linking up with existing partners can help researchers to get their mindset right for innovation projects, he says, where the financial sustainability is a priority. “If you are going to have a product, how are you going to make money out of it?” he asks, suggesting that not thinking through such details could sink any proposal.
Another requirement is that applicants should already be in contact with potential clients for the product or service they are developing, and that a partnership applying for funding should include at least two different stakeholders. As well as coming from business, academia and research, these could include citizen organisations, cities or regions, Gorzynski explains.
Horizon Europe
As the EU moves from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe, the EIT is expanding. A ninth KIC on culture and creativity is about to launch, which Kern says will open its first call soon. He also notes that a tenth KIC may be added to the fold further down the line.
Horizon Europe also sees the launch of the fully fledged European Innovation Council, which focuses on growing startups and has been in its pilot phase until now. Kern says the EIC is focused on larger-scale financing than the EIT—indeed, the financial support available through the EIT is limited. “The maximum is around €500,000 a year and often it’s much, much less,” he says. It is the Europe-wide connections that make the EIT unique, he says, and that network is expanding internationally.
“There is now already an office in Silicon Valley for the whole EIT community, where they can help to connect to the big players,” Kern says, as well as an Israel office in Tel Aviv. Such connections are particularly valuable for EU member states with lower levels of innovation, and Kern says that in Horizon Europe there will be more activities under the EIT’s regional innovation scheme.
This is an extract from an article in Research Professional’s Funding Insight service. To subscribe contact sales@researchresearch.com