ELEVATE aims to accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation capacity in the fields of Food Biotech, Biomedicine, AI and Creative and Cultural Industries, fostering value creation, start-up generation, and knowledge-intensive solutions. By integrating expertise of these knowledge areas, ELEVATE creates sustainable business opportunities in an interdisciplinary, co-creation-driven environment. The project spans six EU regional ecosystems—Portugal’s North, Centre, and Lisbon regions; Italy’s Friuli Venezia Giulia and Emilia Romagna regions; and Central Denmark—leveraging their distinct characteristics and existing structures to drive systematic transformation for long-lasting impact. Aligned with the Strategic Objectives from EIT HEI Initiative and EIT KICs for Food, Health, Digital and Culture & Creativity, ELEVATE bridges academic innovations and market-ready solutions by attracting investment, supporting start-ups, and implementing a novel acceleration programme. It enhances the competitiveness of HEIs by transforming internal structures that support technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and employability. This includes an improved core curriculum designed to equip graduates with the advanced skills and competencies required for success in an increasingly competitive job market.

The project fosters collaboration across a diverse ecosystem of actors, including HEIs, industries, municipalities, and investors, to create a vibrant co-creation community and ensure knowledge transfer across disciplines and sectors. Its methodology combines creative and co-creation activities, mentoring programs, and mixed training modalities to support the development of innovative solutions addressing key challenges in agri-food, health, ICT, and Creative and Cultural Industries. A key feature is the creation of a core programme, which trains students in the different knowledge areas and connects “problem owners” from each area with innovators to co-develop practical, impactful solutions. To ensure sustainability and scalability, ELEVATE introduces a core curriculum that integrates multi-disciplinary modules with intellectual property management and entrepreneurship skills, aligned with the EntreComp Framework. Complementary training for students and staff enhances their ability to contribute to and benefit from the innovation ecosystem. The acceleration programme, designed to support new business creation, will serve as a model for scaling ELEVATE into a European reference for science and tech-based start-ups.

By building on existing structures and processes, and transferring all the experience, lessons and best practices gained through the well succeeded DIP4Agri project (EIT HEI Initiative, Cohort 3, EIT Food), ELEVATE not only meets its immediate goals but also lays the foundation for long-term transformation, driving innovation and economic growth in the participating regions while setting an enduring example for interdisciplinary entrepreneurship across Europe.

Project coordinator

João Cortez, Doctor, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (contact)