EIT Climate-KIC to boost innovation capacity in Croatia, Greece and Lithuania

EIT Climate-KIC is expanding its network with the creation of three new innovation hubs across Croatia, Greece and Lithuania.

The hubs, selected after a competitive process featuring 19 applications, form part of the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) — the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s programme that aims to boost the innovation capacity of countries and regions regarded as ‘modest and moderate’, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard. 

The hubs will be a focal point for organisations from across business and entrepreneurship, higher education, and research and technology, supporting knowledge sharing and integration and accelerating the journey of solutions from the lab through to market.

The winning hubs came together in Brussels last month (June) to launch high-impact, low-carbon initiatives that will be implemented from 2018, based on four strategic priorities of adaptation to climate change, circular economy, energy efficiency and access to finance. 

EIT Climate-KIC will support groups of national partners to meet these challenges through providing access to its knowledge and innovation community, offering matchmaking, bespoke training and grants.

Sandra Vlasic from Terra Hub, one of the organisations hosting the Croatian hub, said: “We are very happy to have the chance to join the club and to be the hub for Croatia. This is a great community of ideas and opportunities.”

Andreas Papandreou from SDSN, representing the Greek hub, said, “It’s been two days of very good discussions about issues that we need to learn about. We’ve seen a number of examples of best practice that have been very helpful in terms of starting to think about how we need to develop our own projects.”

The EIT Regional Innovation Scheme boosts the climate innovation engagement by European regions not formally within Climate-KIC’s geographic network. 

Since 2016, EIT Climate-KIC has been working to establish innovation hubs in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

With Croatia, Greece and Lithuania joining, the scheme will now span a total of 12 countries in the centre, east and south of Europe, bolstering EIT Climate-KIC’s pan-European reach, and boosting climate innovation capacity across the continent.

Participating organisations

The following consortia were selected and will be participating in EIT Climate-KIC activities acting as local platforms of local knowledge exchange:

Croatia:

Development Agency Zagreb, North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency, University of Zagreb (Faculty of Geotechnical Engineering), Terra Hub, Zelena energetska zadruga (Green Energy Cooperative, ZEZ), Mreza znanja d.o.o., Impact Hub Zagreb

Greece:

Athena Research and Innovation Center (ATHENA RC), European Regional Framework for Co-operation (ERFC), Academy of Athens (AA) – Research Centre for Atmospheric Physics and Climatology, Uni.Fund

Lithuania:

Vilnius Tech Park, Contrarian Ventures, Startup Highway, Infobalt, Lithuanian Confederation Of Renewable Resources

More information on the EIT RIS is available here.