1. Opportunities in Europe for innovation
and nurturing entrepreneurial talent:
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)
Endika Bengoetxea, EIT
7th December, San Francisco

2. Unlocking the European innovation potential
Integrating the three sides
of the knowledge triangle
to drive entrepreneurial innovation
EIT`s mission: To become the catalyst for a step change in the European Union’s innovation capacity and impact”
Higher Education
Research & Technology
Business

3. THE EIT’s ENGINE: ITS KNOWLEDGE & INNOVATION COMMUNITIES (KICs)
Highly integrated, creative, excellence-driven and autonomous long-term partnerships
Driven by societal challenges: climate change mitigation and adaptation, future information and communication society and sustainable energy
Fostering the emergence of entrepreneurs
Innovation hubs working across borders and with multidisciplinary approach.

4. KIC PARTNERS 2012
Climate-KIC KIC Partners
EIT ICT Labs KIC Partners
KIC InnoEnergy 104 KIC Partners
In 2012, the three KIC brought together over 260 KIC Partners

5. EIT & “CROSS-KIC AGENDAS”
EDUCATION
Promoting excellent education for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship by high quality EIT labelled degree programmes, fostering a vibrant EIT student & alumni community.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Promoting an entrepreneurial mindset and culture, including risk taking, by creating more favourable environments for passionate entrepreneurial talent and entrepreneurship-driven innovation to flourish.
WORLD-CLASS INNOVATION
Developing innovative ecosystems to create and grow world-class, breakthrough innovations by exploiting KIC synergies and complementarities. 5

6. EUROPEAN INSTITUTE OF INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY (EIT)
Facilitating the following transitions:
from idea to product
from lab to market
from student to entrepreneur
in areas of high societal need.

7. EIT’s ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION AND MISSION
Vision: To establish the EIT as a recognised role model and an impact-oriented game-shifter for entrepreneurship in Europe.
Mission: To promote an entrepreneurial mindset and culture by creating more favourable environments for passionate entrepreneurial talent and entrepreneurship-driven innovation to flourish.
The EIT is striking new paths in knowledge and innovation – especially by operating via its Knowledge and Innovation communities
None of what the EIT has realised thus far has ever been achieved before. With a trial and error approach and an insistence on simplicity, the EIT selected the first three KICs and supported them in building their respective governance structure all in less than two years following the Call for Proposals. Following the first EIT Governing Board meeting with European Commission President Barroso in September 2008, the EIT launched its first call for KICs in April 2009.
The first three KICs were designated in December 2009 and a year later, the contractual agreements between the EIT and each KIC legal entities were signed was spent developing KIC legal and financial entities, getting the contracts signed, putting the KIC entities under the leadership of a CEO. Meanwhile, the EIT has started driving entrepreneurship education and business creation together with the KICs; with initiatives such as KIC summer schools, mentoring schemes, business accelerators and an EIT Entrepreneurship Award. In addition, the EIT Foundation has been established to raise additional funding supporting the EIT.
The EIT and the KICs are designed to continuously learn from each other. They establish and facilitate a culture that helps unlock Europe’s underused potential to leverage people, technology and business innovation for greater EU innovation impact. Entrepreneurship is the central driving force of innovation in the EIT and its KICs. Over time, KICs must become self-sustainable world-class innovation centres to survive.

8. EIT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARDS
Spotlighting entrepreneurial ventures & promoting the risk-taking culture in KICs and beyond
1st edition of the Awards Ceremony: Feb. 2012, Brussels
3 Award winners selected among 9 innovative business ventures nominated by the KICs
EIT support for training and promotional activities, access to the EIT’s network of contacts and EIT events, business coaching/mentoring to be integrated into the Awards scheme 8

9. What do KICs offer to entrepreneurs?
Access to the KIC infrastructure and network
Mentoring and business coaching to prepare and implement business plans
Meeting potential business partners and new customers
Raising company’s own profile through KIC’s partners
Access to new technologies
Exploring markets beyond the home market
Thematic specialisation
Comparative advantages
The market-orientation
Shorter time to market
Bridging the gap between academia and business
Proximity to finance sources: seed funding, VC… 9

10. EIT’s WORLD-CLASS INNOVATION VISION AND MISSION
Vision: To produce world-leading innovations in KICs’ thematic fields, currently sustainable energy, ICT and climate-change.
Mission: To encourage the exploration of a wide-range of new innovation models of world-class standard through KICs.
The EIT is striking new paths in knowledge and innovation – especially by operating via its Knowledge and Innovation communities
None of what the EIT has realised thus far has ever been achieved before. With a trial and error approach and an insistence on simplicity, the EIT selected the first three KICs and supported them in building their respective governance structure all in less than two years following the Call for Proposals. Following the first EIT Governing Board meeting with European Commission President Barroso in September 2008, the EIT launched its first call for KICs in April 2009.
The first three KICs were designated in December 2009 and a year later, the contractual agreements between the EIT and each KIC legal entities were signed was spent developing KIC legal and financial entities, getting the contracts signed, putting the KIC entities under the leadership of a CEO. Meanwhile, the EIT has started driving entrepreneurship education and business creation together with the KICs; with initiatives such as KIC summer schools, mentoring schemes, business accelerators and an EIT Entrepreneurship Award. In addition, the EIT Foundation has been established to raise additional funding supporting the EIT.
The EIT and the KICs are designed to continuously learn from each other. They establish and facilitate a culture that helps unlock Europe’s underused potential to leverage people, technology and business innovation for greater EU innovation impact. Entrepreneurship is the central driving force of innovation in the EIT and its KICs. Over time, KICs must become self-sustainable world-class innovation centres to survive.

11. IMPLEMENTING THE VISION AND MISSION: Fostering world-class innovation by KICs
Developing an integrated EIT strategy for enhancing world-class innovation by KICs
Innovation panel: Structured collaboration with the KICs to support on world-class innovation models and projects
Seeding promising innovation eco-systems through the KICs.
Funding for innovation projects: demonstrators, new products and services
Support on intellectual property aspects: use of patents, licensing… 11

12. EIT’s EDUCATIONAL VISION AND MISSION
Vision: To create entrepreneurially and innovation minded people in Europe.
Mission: To deliver a unique brand of excellent education responsive to both business and societal demands, focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity distinguished by an EIT label .
The EIT is striking new paths in knowledge and innovation – especially by operating via its Knowledge and Innovation communities
None of what the EIT has realised thus far has ever been achieved before. With a trial and error approach and an insistence on simplicity, the EIT selected the first three KICs and supported them in building their respective governance structure all in less than two years following the Call for Proposals. Following the first EIT Governing Board meeting with European Commission President Barroso in September 2008, the EIT launched its first call for KICs in April 2009.
The first three KICs were designated in December 2009 and a year later, the contractual agreements between the EIT and each KIC legal entities were signed was spent developing KIC legal and financial entities, getting the contracts signed, putting the KIC entities under the leadership of a CEO. Meanwhile, the EIT has started driving entrepreneurship education and business creation together with the KICs; with initiatives such as KIC summer schools, mentoring schemes, business accelerators and an EIT Entrepreneurship Award. In addition, the EIT Foundation has been established to raise additional funding supporting the EIT.
The EIT and the KICs are designed to continuously learn from each other. They establish and facilitate a culture that helps unlock Europe’s underused potential to leverage people, technology and business innovation for greater EU innovation impact. Entrepreneurship is the central driving force of innovation in the EIT and its KICs. Over time, KICs must become self-sustainable world-class innovation centres to survive.

13. Overview of main education activities
Master and doctoral programmes
International cooperation, Industry involvement
Master and doctoral schools
Training on specific skills and competences
Mobility, Internships and Scholarships/fellowships
Executive training and post-doctoral courses
Continuous professional development courses/modules
Learning modules and OER
Alumni and Outreach activities

14. EIT overarching learning outcomes
EIT LABEL for excellent educational programmes at Master and PhD levels implemented by the KICs
4 Quality criteria
Robust entrepreneurship education
Highly integrated, innovative "learning-by-doing" curricula
Mobility, European dimension and openness to the world
Outreach strategy and access policy
EIT overarching learning outcomes
& 14

15. EIT Overarching Learning Outcomes: Knowledge Forms
Creativity skills and competences
Innovation skills and competences
Entrepreneurship skills and competences
Research skills and competences
Leadership skills and competences
Intellectual transforming skills and competences
Making value judgements 15

16. Opportunities for PhD candidates, post-docs & experienced researchers
Participation in Innovation projects
e.g. Experience & Living Labs (EIT ICT Labs) - researchers and engineers test and modify products in close collaboration with end-users in a real-life or a real-as-life setting
Training - Intensive courses/modules
e.g. climate innovation school “the journey” - explore the potential for launching start-up business ventures, support from Climate-KIC business coaches, business plan writing and presentation, access to network of international fellow innovators
Business creation services - support in developing business in the different phases of business creation and funding
e.g. KIC InnoEnergy Highway - business creation services; a European network and the first customer for start ups/spin ups; open for entries any time

17. More information at: www.eit.europa.eu www.climate-kic.org

18. T H A Y N K O U ! 18