EIT Higher Education Programme will be extended until 2027

The 'EIT Higher Education Institutions (HEI) Initiative' will be extended until 2027. The initiative supports change processes in universities in order to increase their entrepreneurship and innovation potential. During the test phase, 359 universities and 179 institutions from the non-academic sector received 69 million euros in funding. In 65 projects, more than 40,000 students, academic and administrative staff received training on innovation and entrepreneurship. In addition, more than 1000 start-ups and scale-ups were supported.

Due to the remarkable achievement of the programme’s pilot phase, including the training of 40 000 students and staff and providing support to over 1000 start-ups and scale-ups, the EIT HEI Initiative will now be extended until 2027. The EIT HEI Initiative supports systemic transformations within universities  to steer their research and innovation strategies beyond the classroom to address some of the biggest global challenges.  

Universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are invaluable to Europe’s innovation ecosystem. However, difficulties lie in properly connecting universities to regional non-academic partners to foster innovation; and transferring business and entrepreneurship teaching  beyond traditional business faculties. As Europe’s largest and most experienced innovation ecosystem, the EIT created a dedicated programme: the EIT HEI Initiative to unlock the full innovation and entrepreneurship potential of higher education institutions (HEIs). During the programme’s pilot phase, 359 HEIs and 179 non-academic were supported with EUR 69 million. Across 65 projects, more than 40 000 students, academic staff, and non-academic staff received training in innovation and entrepreneurship and over 1 000 start-ups and scale-ups received support.   

The EIT HEI Initiative was centred around creating institutional change in universities to increase their innovation potential. Supported projects were successful in creating new start-up support infrastructures on campuses, including offices that mandated improved technology transfer, new guidelines for research, commercialisation and intellectual property right strategies, and new curricula for students and staff.

Further information can be found here.