Launched in early 2021, the New European Bauhaus (NEB) is a creative and interdisciplinary initiative that calls on all of us to imagine and build a sustainable and inclusive future that is beautiful for our eyes, minds, and souls. The initiative provides an innovative, participatory dimension to the European Green Deal and nods to the original Bauhaus, a radical German art school founded in 1919, which became famous for an approach that unified artistic vision with function. The NEB extends the principles of its predecessor by discovering ways of living that value design beyond functionality, while promoting harmony with nature and dialogue across cultures, genders, and ages.
The EIT Community NEB was created to support on-the-ground projects that embody the values of the NEB initiative. As Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem, the EIT Community NEB covers several fields, including climate, culture and creativity, digital, food systems, urban mobility, and manufacturing. The community supports the exploration, testing and scaling up of concepts for future ways of living – placing people’s needs at the heart of transformation and encouraging innovative solutions through start-up development, capacity building and citizen-engagement activities.
EIT Community NEB Objectives
- Steer the entrepreneurial ecosystem towards NEB-relevant products and services for businesses and end users
- Promote transformative solutions that correspond to NEB values through dedicated Ignite NEB events
- Develop these solutions into tangible business ideas through the prototyping and testing of opportunities through the Grow NEB programme
- Invite citizens to collaborate with each other and/or public authorities in the re-design of communities – transforming the places and spaces where they live, work and relax.
- Support EIT Community NEB beneficiaries through design and business mentorships – to further integrate NEB ways of thinking and doing into their practices
Ignite NEB
Ignite NEB events bring people together and facilitate connections between businesses, creatives, and a local community seeking change. They provide a space for ideas that view entrepreneurship as a vehicle to create sustainable, beautiful and inclusive communities.
The events combine activities based on entrepreneurship and the celebration of NEB values, using cultural and artistic elements. These are two-day, in-person events, preceded by online sessions in which teams are created and trained. The events conclude with the teams pitching in front of a jury, which selects the most promising NEB ideas to become part of the Grow NEB programme.
Grow NEB
The Grow NEB programme is intrinsically intertwined with the Ignite NEB events. Grow NEB is an eight-month programme that supports Ignite NEB winners with:
- Assessment of business needs
- Matchmaking sessions with EIT Community NEB business mentors.
- Mentoring sessions with selected NEB business mentors to define and strengthen the business model for the solution
- Support with the prototyping of products or services in workspaces that provide access to tools, materials, and technologies to experiment and learn
- Implementation of a minimum of three prototyping sessions during the Grow NEB programme.
- Facilitation of testing sessions with a minimum of 20 potential consumers
The teams with the best solutions will be invited to apply for the Catalyse NEB programme, which reserves one slot for a Grow NEB team.
Catalyse NEB
Catalyse NEB supports businesses that:
- Address sustainability in the shape of mitigating or adapting to climate change, supporting sustainable transport, manufacturing and/or agri-food uses, as well as encouraging a circular economy
- Originate their product or service from social demand responding to the need of a specific social group in a local/regional/national/European context and addressing one or more NEB challenges
- Have a graphic designer in the team or show consideration of aesthetics and quality of experience within the conception of their solution
Catalyse NEB is a one-year acceleration programme that provides selected start-ups with business and entrepreneurship training, as well as mentoring to support their growth and help them become international gamechangers.
Connect NEB
Connect NEB makes sharing knowledge easier to create grassroots, transdisciplinary projects addressing sustainability, quality of experience, and inclusivity. EIT Community NEB focuses on developing long-term solutions in collaboration with everyday people to deliver transformation that matches the needs and demands of the wider community. The goal is to increase their ability to create, experiment, demonstrate, scale, and deploy innovative solutions for a just, equitable, and prosperous future.
Co-Create NEB
Co-create NEB resolves challenges faced by cities, peri-urban and rural areas, with an emphasis on the innovation and re-design of public spaces in collaboration with citizens. It brings individuals and communities closer to nature, addressing the needs of people who require specific attention, and developing materials and products with circular life cycles.
Supported activities are tailored towards at least two specific and clearly identified target groups, which can defined by aspects including age, profession, or neighbourhood. Co-create NEB supports consortia of a minimum of two and maximum of four partners (private or public, EIT Community partners or other stakeholders), with at least one of the partners being a city, region or affiliated entity located in an EU Member State or Third Country associated to Horizon Europe. The EIT Community NEB looks for solutions with long-term sustainable impact and the potential to be implemented on a broader scale and/or replicable following a context-based approach.
Enhance NEB
Enhance NEB scales up the most promising Connect NEB and Co-create NEB projects. It either strengthens project impact more holistically within the same project location or replicates them to amplify their impact in a new location. Enhance NEB supports consortia with a minimum of two and a maximum of four EIT Community NEB partners, with one of them being a city, region, or an affiliated entity associated with a city or region from EIT Community NEB partners or a new city, a region, or an affiliated entity not from the EIT Community NEB).
NEB Mentors
NEB Mentors support beneficiaries of Catalyse NEB, Grow NEB, Connect NEB, Co-create NEB, and Enhance NEB. They are identified through an annual call for expressions of interest. As independent external experts, NEB Mentors are required to bring an ‘NEB mindset’ to their mentorship and encourage the EIT Community NEB mentees to further integrate the core values of sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion into their practices. NEB Mentors are experts with a strong grasp of design-led strategy and development processes.
For more information, please contact: neb@eitcommunity.eu