Achievements

65 projects

€69 million awarded to support 359 HEIs and 380+ non-academic organisations

40000 +

Trained students, academic and non-academic staff on innovation and entrepreneurship

1100 +

Start-ups and scale-ups supported
What is the EIT's HEI Initiative?

Empower, transform and thrive in higher education

The EIT HEI Initiative is a joint activity of the EIT community, which recognises higher education institutions (HEIs) as the pivotal actors in regional and European innovation ecosystems.

The EIT HEI Initiative is uniquely designed to enhance the innovation capacity and entrepreneurial mindset of HEIs and foster collaboration between academia, industry, research institutions, public authorities and governmental organisations. Through competitive calls for proposals, the initiative offers non-reimbursable grants to consortia formed by HEIs and their partners to work on innovation and entrepreneurship, but also on other dimensions of strategic interest for Europe, such as deep tech.

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Testimonials

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After the successful pilot phase, training over 40 000 students and staff, I am eager to see what this initiative will achieve with a broader reach and more partners.

Iliana Ivanova
European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

Testimonials

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With hundreds of project partners across Europe and beyond, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and its HEI Initiative can help ensure that Europe plays a centre-stage role in the global innovation ecosystem.

Margaritis Schinas
European Commission Vice-President

Testimonials

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During these first months with the EIT, we have been feeling very supported. They have been caring and helpful with onboarding us into the EIT procedures.

Katre Elias
Project Manager, UNIcorn project

Testimonials

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INVENTHEI has impacted our community by enlarging and modernising our entrepreneurship training, reinforcing academia-business networks, and exposing our students and staff to prominent innovation ecosystems.

Prof. Joana Resende
Vice-Rector for Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Valuation and Strategic Planning, University of Porto

Testimonials

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The agile EIT HEI Initiative team and RiEcoLab allow us to implement institutional change and build innovation capacity, while positioning our HEIs as ecosystem integration labs for spin-offs, start-ups and scale-ups.

Dr T. Bartosz Kalinowski and Dr Adrian Solomon
Coordinators, RiEcoLab project