Date: 23 September 2022
Venue: Vienna
Participation: free-of-charge, register here
Language: English
Under the theme “Making Innovation Happen”, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials, EIT Urban Mobility and EIT Culture & Creativity kindly invite you on a journey through their numerous initiatives and programmes and demonstrate how working with the different EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities will benefit your organisation’s innovation endeavours while also corresponding to and supporting the national Research & Innovation priorities. More than this, partners and project leaders share at first hand how EIT support has helped them to further develop their innovations, networks, and businesses across Europe.
With more than 2,000 participating actors, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is the largest innovation ecosystem in Europe aiming at strengthening Europe’s ability to innovate. It is an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU’s framework programme for research and innovation. Since 2008, the EIT has established nine Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) tackling the most pressing challenges of our time in various industries.
The EIT KICs follow a pan-European approach, connecting business, education, and research, while at the same time establishing regional innovation hubs to ensure proximity and close collaboration with the local industry ecosystems. Participation in the EIT KICs’ activities leads to increased innovation efforts in various industries and drives societal prosperity in Europe, enhancing competitiveness, sustainable growth as well as the creation of jobs.
EIT in Austria and Slovakia
Many of the EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities are strongly represented in the EU member countries Austria and Slovakia. Since 2015, EIT RawMaterials partners with the RIC (Resources Innovation Center) Leoben, which acts as the KICs regional center for East and South-East Europe through outreach, integration and community building activities. In 2020, the first Austrian branch of the EIT, the Co-Location Center East of EIT Manufacturing, was established in Vienna, fostering the country’s manufacturing industry in the EIT network. Since 2022, Vienna hosts EIT Health’s newly founded Innovation Hub Austria, and it will also be the home of a Co-Location Center of the recently launched EIT Culture & Creativity.
In Slovakia, the EIT is strongly represented as well with the country being the home base for numerous hubs of the so-called EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS), which aims at boosting the innovation capabilities of the RIS eligible countries by strengthening linkages among key innovation actors. The newest EIT Innovation Community, EIT Culture & Creativity, will also be the first KIC to establish a Co-Location Center in Kosice, Slovakia.