Get to know the EIT – Europe’s Largest Innovation Network
The EIT strengthens Europe’s ability to innovate by powering solutions to pressing global challenges and by nurturing entrepreneurial talent to create sustainable growth and skilled jobs in Europe. The EIT is an EU body and an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU framework programme for research and innovation.
The Institute supports dynamic pan-European partnerships, known as EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) among leading companies, research labs, and universities. Currently, nine EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities are supported: Climate-KIC, EIT Digital, InnoEnergy, EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Urban Mobility, and EIT Culture & Creativity. The EIT has also launched a Call for its 10th Knowledge and Innovation Community, EIT Water.
Together with their leading partners, the EIT Community offers a wide range of innovation and entrepreneurship activities across Europe: entrepreneurial education courses, business creation and acceleration services, and innovation-driven research projects. To date, these have resulted in:
Learn more about the EIT's model
Check out the EIT's impact stories
An Integral Part of Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the EU’s €95.5 billion research and innovation programme, focused on climate action, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and enhancing the EU’s global competitiveness and economic growth.
The EIT plays a key role in Pillar 3 of Horizon Europe’s ‘Innovative Europe’. With a €3 billion budget, it strengthens sustainable innovation ecosystems and supports entrepreneurial education, which includes lifelong learning, university engagement, and bringing solutions to global challenges to market.
Learn more about the EIT’s strategy for 2021–2027
Read the EU regulation on the EIT
For all legal information regarding the EIT’s mission and framework, check out the EIT Legal Framework page.
The Governing Board’s vision for the EIT within the Next European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2028–2035)
Building on 15 years of impact in innovation, skills, and entrepreneurship, the EIT Governing Board’s Future Vision Paper sets out how the Institute aims to tackle the EU’s key challenges under the next Framework Programme:
- It plans to expand into key areas such as security, AI and robotics, and rural innovation.
- To bridge the innovation gap, the new Regional Innovation Booster will enhance startup creation and investor matchmaking, particularly in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe.
- The paper envisions that an enhanced EIT Innovation Campus will streamline access to education and skills programmes, with a focus on meeting industry needs and supporting women entrepreneurs.
- Finally, the EIT will reinforce synergies by aligning with other EU bodies to set up a pipeline of support between knowledge creation, knowledge commercialisation and start-up creation (through the EIT), and start-up scaling
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