The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is a key driver of sustainable European economic growth and competitiveness. It works to reinforce the innovation capacity of the European Union and its Member States in order to address grand challenges facing European society. From 2014 to 2020, the EIT will receive € 2 711.4 million to continue promoting innovation in Europe.The EIT has been created to enhance Europe’s ability to innovate by integrating, for the first time at EU level, education and entrepreneurship with research and innovation. The main operational arm of the EIT is its Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). Through them the EIT develops and tests a new model of how innovation is approached, managed, financed and delivered in Europe. The KICs offer a genuine opportunity for top innovation players to be part of a highly collaborative community, based on the principles of excellence and commitment, to achieve pan-European impact.In record time, the EIT and its existing Knowledge and Innovation Communities, or KICs, have brought about promising results by training more than 1000 students, creating more than 100 start-ups which have launched more than 400 products and services.The EIT's three initial KICs were established in 2010 to address:
- Climate change (Climate KIC)
- Sustainable energy (KIC InnoEnergy)
- ICT innovation (EIT ICT Labs)
From 2014 onwards, the EIT will launch 5 new KICs: 2014
- Innovation for healthy living and active ageing
- Raw materials – sustainable exploration, extraction, processing and recycling
2016
- Added-value manufacturing
- Food4Future – sustainable supply chain from resources to consumers
2018
- Urban mobility
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The EIT is bringing real and lasting change to the European Union’s innovation landscape, by creating new environments where higher education, research, public administrations and business work together to produce disruptive innovation.
