European institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)

The general objective of the EIT is to increase Europe’s capacity to innovate, better compete with foreign peers and as a result contribute to the creation of jobs and wealth.

To this purpose the EIT has formed ten innovation communities (full name knowledge and innovation communities or KICs) and their role is threefold: develop innovative products & services, start new companies and train a new generation of entrepreneurs. They have a pan-European set-up though some innovation communities have regional innovation hubs to facilitate the collaboration between the partners. Each innovation community is fully independent and focuses on a specific sectoral challenge (e.g. urban mobility, active ageing, etc.).

The EIT funds these Communities only partially for a duration of maximum 15 years after which they need to be run self-sufficiently. The other funding comes from the communities, industrial partners and investors.   

The first KICs founded back in 2010 (KIC Climate, 28 Digital, EIT Innoenergy) are now operating without direct funding from the EIT headquarters. They can still receiving funding from other EU-programmes through participation in calls for proposals. 

Over the course of the past 15 years, it has been become apparent that not every KIC was being governed as one might expect and participants also perceived a lack of transparancy when taking part in the calls. Therefore we advise you to carefully read the conditions of each call and talk to the National Contact Point before embarking on a trajectory with one of the 10 KIC's. 

If you would like to get involved you can get in touch with these communities. All details of their opportunities are found here