KoWi - European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)

Hauptmenü

Inhalt: Home / Komplementäre EU-Programme

EIT

European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) was created in 2008 as a new initiative to boost European competitiveness and innovation and to promote sustainable growth in the European economic area. In line with the current Europe 2020 strategy, the EIT is designed to strengthen the overall European innovation policy.

The EIT’s stated aim is to step up the European innovation process, in terms of the development of new products and services on the basis of outstanding research results. In addition, it seeks to strengthen technology transfer activities and to foster the creation of new businesses in Europe. As an incentive for scientific excellence and certificate of quality, the participating higher education institutions are encouraged to offer Master and PhD degrees bearing an "EIT label”.

By establishing long-term international links between higher education institutions, research organisations, industry and SMEs, the EIT connects the central actors of the knowledge triangle and existing European funding structures, complementary to other existing European funding structures.

Rather than being a conventional research institute, the EIT itself acts as an administrative structure which employs the so-called Knowledge and Innovation Community’s (KICs) as operational tools. A KIC is a highly integrated public-private partnership that brings together outstanding businesses, universities and research institutes in centres of excellence, the so-called “Co-location Centres”.

The total budget for all EIT activities by the end of 2013 amounts to 308.7 million EUR.

Organisational structure

The EIT headquarter is located in Budapest, as is the Governing Board, the EIT’s central decision-making body.

Current director of the EIT is José-Manuel Leceta. He is responsible for the implementation of the Governing Board’s strategic decisions and for the management the EIT’s day-to-day business.

The Governing Board coordinates the EIT’s activities, selects, appoints and evaluates the KICs and determines the strategic priorities and the most important thematic areas of the EIT.

18 Board members officially took up their work on 30 July 2008. Since September 2011, Prof. Dr Alexander von Gabain is leading the EIT Governing Board (http://eit.europa.eu/about/governing-board.html) as chairman. With the start of the first three KICs, an additional four representative members joined the Governing Board. Furthermore, an Executive Committee was set up in order to oversee the work of the EIT.

Calls for proposals

The first call for submission of proposals for the establishment of the first three KICs was closed on 27 August 2009; 20 proposals were submitted in total. On 16 December 2009, the EIT announced the names of the selected KICs:

Climate-KIC: Climate Change - Mitigation and Adaptation
KIC InnoEnergy: Sustainable Energy
EIT ICT Labs: Future Information and Communication Society

Important recent developments

May 2011:

The European Commission published the results of the external evaluation of the EIT, which contained recommendations, amongst others, for the future strategy, the publication of future call for proposals, measurement of performance for the EIT and the KICs, the governance structure and the communication strategy.

June 2011:

The EIT published its draft proposal for a 'Strategic Innovation Agenda' (SIA): 9 new KICs shall be funded between 2014-2020, 6 broad research themes have been suggested in the SIA.

The Deadline ended for the public consultation on the future strategy of the EIT, the results have been published in autumn 2011.

December 2011:

DG Education and Culture has published the prosopal for a decision on the SIA of the EIT, the proposal for the amended EIT regulation, the summary of the impact assessment and the commission opinion on the independent expert evaluation on the EIT.

A budget of EUR 2,8 billion (3,2 billion taking account of estimated inflation in 2014-2020) has been allocated for the EIT from the overall budget of Horizon 2020. Up to 9 KICs (among them 3 already running KICs) are supposed to be funded in 2 waves between 2014 and 2020:

3 new KICs, each in 2014 und 2018, a further selection in 2018 will depend on the external evaluation of the EIT and of Horizon 2020 and the assessment of the funded KICs.

The following themes have been suggested in the commission proposal for the SIA, which shall deliver added value to funded activities and include high innovation potential:

1) Added-value manufacturing

2) Food4future - sustainable supply chain from resources to consumers

3) Innovation for healthy living and active ageing

4) Raw materials - sustainable exploration, extraction, processing, recycling and substitution

5) Smart secure societies

6) Urban mobility

The themes 2, 3 and 4 have been already selected for 2014, the remaining themes could follow in 2018. A detailled description of all 6 themes is available in different factsheets in the commission proposal for the SIA.

back

Proposal for the Strategic Innovation Agenda of the EIT published more »