The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), based in Budapest, Hungary, aims to enhance Europe’s ability to innovate, which translates into providing solutions to the rapidly emerging societal problems, as well as products that meet the demands and desires of consumers.
Objectives
KICs carry out a whole range of activities, covering the entire innovation chain – including training and education programmes, reinforcing the journey from research to the market, innovation projects and business incubators.
Each KIC has been set up as a legal entity and has appointed a CEO to run its operations – a first for an EU initiative. The EIT has provided the KICs with a great degree of autonomy to define their legal status, internal organisation and working methods.
The EIT’s operational basis are the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), through which the EIT aims to fully integrate all three sides of the ‘knowledge triangle’, i.e. higher education, research and business. Each of the KICs operates across a limited number of hubs called ‘co-location centres’. There are currently 17 co-location centres spread across the EU. Climate-KIC additionally operates through six regions, each led by a regional or local government in Regional Implementation and Innovation Communities (RICs).
Three KICs were launched in 2010:
Creation of five new KICs to be launched in three waves. The themes (outlined in more details in the EIT’s Strategic Innovation Agenda) to be addressed by the new KICs are:
As established in the EIT’s Strategic Innovation Agenda (SIA) and Horizon 2020, the first two new KICs, to be established in 2014, will address the thematic fields of:
Implementation
The EIT funding model is based on the concept of leverage; every euro invested from the EU budget will trigger a higher investment from other sources. Through its unique funding model, the EIT contributes on average a maximum of 25 % of the overall budget of each KIC.
KICs carry out a whole range of activities, covering the entire innovation chain – including training and education programmes, reinforcing the journey from research to the market, innovation projects and business incubators. KICs have been conceived so that they are able to react in an effective and flexible way to new challenges and changing environments.
Each KIC has been set up as a legal entity and has appointed a CEO to run its operations – a first for an EU initiative. The EIT has provided the KICs with a great degree of autonomy to define their legal status, internal organisation and working methods.
The KICs are driven by a pursuit of excellence in all of their activities and are established with the aim of reaching the necessary critical mass to achieve systemic impact, including the creation of new businesses and new jobs, and the promotion of new skills and entrepreneurial talent in the economy.
The budget for the EIT of approximately EUR 2.7bn for the period from 2014 to 2020.