U!Innovate

The future of European competitiveness requires HEIs to develop linkages with businesses and establish incentives for researchers to become entrepreneurs, as stated in the recent report by Mario Draghi. At the same time, climate change requires urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The calls for competitiveness and for climate-neutrality lays the grand motivation for the U!Innovate project.

Specifically, U!Innovate strives to:

• Educate, train and mentor future entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs for the creation of new start-ups and transforming business models within established companies;
• Engage and incentivise staff and students to commercialise and upscale their innovative ideas into businesses, particularly those contributing to climate neutrality;
• Support partners from the public sector to achieve the goals for climate-neutral and smart cities, creating new synergies among the wide diversity of local ecosystems and geographical locations in the alliance by setting up a joint hybrid inter-regional incubator.

The project aims to educate, train and mentor 1200 students and 340 staff members through joint education portfolios, summer schools and climathons, and support 18 start-ups and the establishment of 4 start-ups in collaboration with business partners and EIT KICs.