EIT Climate KIC
Partnership website: https://www.climate-kic.org/
Community and Programmes overview:
The Climate-KIC community currently involves 400+ organizations from diverse sectors including businesses, universities, cities, public agencies, and NGOs. With a focus on climate action, the Climate-KIC community aims to drive breakthrough innovation and help Europe achieve its goal of a zero-carbon economy by 2050. All partners are invited to participate in four key areas:
- Creating the carbon-neutral cities and towns of the future
- Reducing industrial carbon emission (sustainable production)
- Unlocking new financial models to foster the climate transition
- Sustainable land use for agriculture, forestry and food
To effectively address the challenges in these areas, our community is structured around four integrated programs:
- Deep Demonstration Projects: These large-scale projects serve as real-life testbeds for new technologies and innovation models. Targeted at mayors, government industries, and community leaders, they follow a specific methodology and cover various themes as illustrated by the portfolio of works.
Currently, Deep Demonstrations Projects are centered around: - Education Programme:This program offers learning opportunities through hands-on experiences, online classes, professional development, and graduate school courses.
- Entrepreneurship: The aim is to support promising start-ups with climate-positive innovations and business models, offerering support through initiatives like:
- Research & Innovation Programme: This program combines knowledge from various sources, including government, academia, industry, and researchers, to develop socially accountable policies and best practices. It currently consists of:
- Demonstrator Programme, which helps innovators prove the viability of their ideas.
- Scaler Programme, which provides funding and support to market-ready solutions.
How to get involved?
To explore opportunities and stay updated on the latest news, visit the Climate-KIC webpage and check their open calls for proposals. EIT Climate-KIC have their office in Brussels. You can reach out through ckbrussels@climate-kic.org.
Belgian organisations and companies can also contact the Benelux hub of this Innovation Community. Details can be found on their website.
You can also attend or watch InnovEIT, the annual conference of the EIT where you can meet other members of the communities and EIT experts.
Lastly, for Climate-KIC related inquiries, you can contact the National Contact Point (NCP) for Flanders, Ria.debreucker@vlaio.be.
What are partnerships?
Partnerships group the EC and private and/or public partners, to coordinate and streamline the research & innovation initiatives and funding in some selected key domains.
How to use partnerships?
-
orientation
Partnerships publish strategic documents, e.g. outlining the main research and innovation challenges or key focus points. -
networking
Partnerships often organise events, such as info days, brokerage events, etc. Meet potential partners and learn about the nuances that are not visible in the official documents. -
ecosystem analysis
Partnerships typically have an advisory board, and publish impact studies of previous actions. These are good sources of information to uncover the main R&D&I players in the domain. -
steering the agenda
Partnerships collaborate with the EC on outlining the strategy and the future funding opportunities in their domain, based on input from industry, academia, and other stakeholders.
Testimonial
RUSTICA - Converting organic residues into bio-based fertiliser products
The RUSTICA project obtained funding under Horizon 2020, more in particular under the topic ‘Closing nutrient cycles’. RUSTICA focuses on demonstration and implementation of circular bio-based nutrient valorisation chains, focusing on waste from the fruit and vegetable agro-food system. The project kicked off in 2021 and will run until 2024. It will use a strong multi-actor approach to co-create both socio-economic and technological knowledge in four case study regions in Europe and one in Colombia. The Flanders-based company DRANCO is one of the project partners and acts as technical project manager for the entire project. DRANCO participates in the project to develop its own technologies, to network and to help make the transition to a more circular based economy.
