EIT Opens 16 Innovation Hubs Across Europe to Tackle Regional Innovation Divide
EITThe European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has successfully launched 16 innovation hubs across Central, Eastern and Southern Europe dedicated to tackling Europe’s regional innovation divide.
The new hubs, known as EIT Community Hubs are an integral part of the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme and have been launched in the following countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia , Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Spain and Portugal covering their respective EU’s Outermost Regions. The new EIT Community Hubs will serve as a central gateway to Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem supporting local innovators and entrepreneurs to scale their innovations and launch new products to the market. EIT Community Hubs represents all EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) under one roof, boosting cooperation among local businesses, education authorities, and research organisations, enhancing the region’s competitiveness and contributing to Europe’s economic growth and competitiveness.
The EIT Regional Innovation Scheme has grown in the past ten years to be one of the most successful innovation instruments connecting and collaborating, between researchers, entrepreneurs and companies in the widening countries. RIS-eligible countries currently account for 60% of the EIT’s total participation, well above the Horizon Europe average of 40% – and many RIS-supported ventures have realised their potential and found breakthrough commercial success. This year we celebrate ten years of impact, ten years of helping grow companies and launching new innovations to the market
Stefan Dobrev, Chairman of the EIT Governing Board
By connecting regional actors, innovators, and partners to Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem, the EIT RIS strengthens ecosystems in low-innovation performance countries’ ability to innovate and paves the way for synergies between new networks and local and regional smart specialisation strategies.
A Decade Of Impact
2024 marks ten years of impact for the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme – a dedicated programme offering tailor made support and widened regional outreach to ‘moderate’ and ‘emerging’ innovator countries as designated by the European Innovation Scoreboard.
Today, the EIT, under Horizon Europe is strongly addressing Europe’s innovation divide, having invested over one billion euros into building up innovation ecosystems across Europe. Over 700 innovation projects have been supported by the EIT Reginal Innovation Scheme, helping to launch over 500 products and services to the market, and supporting over 3 360 start-ups and scale-up including creating over 250 new start-ups. The EIT Regional Innovation Scheme’s mid-term evaluation results were recently published, documenting the programme’s effectiveness in strengthening the capacity of innovation enablers and actors, such as business accelerators, incubators, start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, and educational and research institutions. The study also notes that results achieved by the EIT RIS often exceed expectations and highlight the interconnected approach of the EIT Model and the EIT’s local presence as critical to its effectiveness.
In addition to the sixteen established EIT Community Hubs, further innovation hubs will be in launched in the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and France representing the EU’s Outermost Regions by the end of 2025.
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