How to Get €400 Million for Your R&D Project?

As a leading university or a tech company, you might be looking for calls to develop your project. And, since you know research is made of collaborations you may be looking for partnerships possibilities.

Well, you should know that there is an independent EU body called the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) that offers calls for proposals for innovative and collaborative projects.

If you are interested in what the EIT is, how it works and if you can be part of those dynamic partnerships you are in luck. Let’s now take a closer look at the EIT and the calls it offers.

The funds come from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology

The EU describes EIT as a unique European initiative that brings together leading universities, research centers, and companies to form dynamic partnerships.

The EIT is an independent EU body set up in 2008 to enhance Europe’s ability to innovate by nurturing entrepreneurial talent and supporting new ideas.

The EIT aims at creating favorable environments for what the European Commission calls “creative thoughts”. These thoughts should help to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship to develop in Europe.

The EIT is an integral part of Horizon 2020, the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

Here is an infographic extracted from the EIT website that sums up in numbers the important of the EIT’s network and results through the setup partnerships.

The EIT brings together research, business and education to create partnerships called “Knowledge and Innovation Communities” (KICs). The KICs are created by the EIT to achieve its mission of “boosting” innovation in Europe.

Let’s now see exactly what kind of funding possibilities you have if you wish to apply to a KIC.

You can access the funds by being part of partnerships called “KICs”

The EIT funding model seeks to align, pool and eventually leverage the KICs’ innovation investments.

The EIT’s financial contribution does not exceed 25% on average of a KIC’s overall resources over its lifetime. The EIT’s financial contribution to the KIC is provided in the form of a grant for action.

The principle is that a KIC should attract further fundings. Of course, it starts with the partners’ own revenues and resources. But it quickly should rely on other resources such as private and/or public funding at the national, regional and EU level.

For example, fundings can come from the European Structural and Investment Funds and the H2020 program. For more information about those funding, possibilities don’t hesitate to read our article on Access to risk financing in Horizon 2020.

Let’s now see what are those KICs and how to be part of them.

Funds are allocated to a wide range of topics such as climate, digital or health

A small definition

The EIT’s KICs are partnerships that bring together businesses, research centers, and universities.

They address different topics by enabling the development of innovative products and services in a wide range of subjects like climate change, healthy living, and active aging. They also support the starting of new companies and the training of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

The EIT sets the strategies for the KICs by outlining activities that have to be achieved. These activities are set out in individual framework partnership agreements and specific grant agreements signed with the KICs. The specific grant agreement sets out the general terms and conditions of the specific grants that may be awarded by the EIT for a project.

The topics of the KICs

The KICs carry out activities that cover the entire innovation chain: training and education programs, reinforce the transition from research to market, innovation projects, as well as business incubators and accelerators. The EIT’s role is to set the strategies for the KICS. But it is important to understand that it is up to the KICs to put these strategies into practice. And therefore provide the expected results.

There are currently six KICs:

• EIT Climate-KIC: addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• EIT Digital: addressing information and communication technologies.
• EIT InnoEnergy: addressing sustainable energy.
• EIT Health: addressing healthy living and active aging.
• EIT Raw Materials: addressing sustainable exploration, extraction, processing, recycling, and substitution.
• EIT Food: putting Europe at the center of a global revolution in food innovation and production.

Each KIC has been set up as a legal entity and has appointed a CEO.

The EIT has provided the KICs with a great degree of autonomy to define their legal status, internal organization, and working methods.

For each KICs, there are calls for proposals.

Let’s now see an example of a partnership from EIT’s 2016 call for KICs proposals, EIT Food.

It worked for Food Connect

The EIT Food addresses sustainable supply chain from resources to consumers.

Its goals are challenging. The program aims to support the creation of 350 start-ups within seven years. Education is also part of the strategy as 10 000 graduates should be trained from EIT-labelled Master and programs over seven years. On the market side, the program wants to develop 290 new or improved products, services, and processes by 2024. As it states in its full title the EIT Food consider the ecological aspects by decreasing greenhouse-gas emissions in the European food system by 40% by 2030.

The aim is to increase the skills and entrepreneurial spirit in the food sector and promote the potential of SMEs.

The “winner” of the call was designated after an evaluation by external experts and the EIT Governing Board.

This winner was FoodConnects. It is a consortium of 50 partners from 13 countries: Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain as well as Israel and Switzerland.

It includes large organization such as PepsiCo Inc., Fraunhofer, the University of Cambridge, the Polish Academy of Science, Robert Bosch GmbH, Nestlé, the Autonomous University of Madrid, Sodexo SA and many more.

This consortium is coordinated by Professor Thomas Hofmann, vice-president of the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

The sum of € 4 million has been allocated by the EIT Food as start-up funding for this project. And if the goals are achieved, the EIT funding pool will get a total of € 400 million.

How to apply for money in 2018?

The 2018 KICs calls for proposals are available online. Here is a timeline for the application if you are interested to be part of the 2018 KICs.

(source: EIT’s call for KICs timeline)

To sum up, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology is a unique initiative that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship across Europe.

It does so through partnerships called KICs.

You can apply to those KICs call for proposals if you are a university, a research center or a company working on topics such as food, energy, health, digital, etc.

So, if you are tempted to find partners to apply to a KIC call for proposals, don’t hesitate to check out Scientist database.