NEWS16 February 2021

Help available to access European Funding for Digital Innovation

The University of Surrey can help businesses access European Digital Funding to accelerate innovation

The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) will soon be accepting applications to access funding to accelerate new products and services and the University of Surrey is seeking businesses to collaborate with.

EIT Digital is a leading European digital innovation and entrepreneurial education organisation driving Europe’s digital transformation. It operates a pan-European ecosystem of over 200 top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes, where students, researchers, engineers, business developers and entrepreneurs collaborate in an open innovation setting.

The next annual call for proposal is expected to be announced in April 2021 with the projects to commence January 2022. And the University of Surrey is keen to collaborate with start-ups, SMEs and larger corporates to develop the required research component to create compelling business proposals.

If you have an interest in participating in EIT Digital, please contact the University at [email protected]

EIT has indicated that the budget for the next cycle (2021-2027) will be nearly €3 billion.  The organisation has set a target to involve 750 higher education institutions in its activities, supporting 30,000 students, bringing 4,000 innovations to the market and promoting 700 start-ups. In addition to this, the EIT will launch a new pilot initiative to increase the entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of higher education institutions and will aim to scale up its collaboration with the European Innovation Council (EIC).

Post the UK-Europe trade deal, UK companies and universities can continue to access EIT funding.

Further information on the future of the EIT can be found in the SIA information pages on the EIT website.