We are thrilled to announce the successful bid of the ICE consortium taking home the win of the EIT Call for the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) for Europe’s vibrant Culture and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI). In the form of the “EIT Culture & Creativity” the consortium now takes the European CCSI as a change agent for the Triple Transition in Europe to the next level.
Embarking on this (ad)venture in close cooperation with our partner Europeana Foundation we are looking forward to actively co-shaping the EIT Innovation Community and subsequently the direction of our activities within the Action Programmes envisioned by this pan-European partnership.
“We are delighted to be part of EIT Culture & Creativity, which will create fantastic opportunities for both new and established professionals across the cultural and creative sectors. By joining forces with our long-standing colleagues at the Time Machine Organisation, and other institutions in the partnership, we will be able to share its benefits with the thousands of cultural heritage professionals in our joint networks.” says Harry Verwayen, General Director of the Europeana Foundation.
Our President, Frédéric Kaplan, is also clearly aware of the advantages this endeavour has in stock for our community, stating that “With the new EIT Culture & Creativity the different players in this sector can look forward to a new era of collaboration, innovation and support. Time Machine Organisation is proud to be actively involved in this adventure, working side-by-side with our partner Europeana Foundation and reaching out to an ever-growing community of cultural and creative players, eager to advance the innovation in the European cultural heritage sector together with us!” In line with the development plan we defined in 2020, we will be able in this new context to progress in the collective design and implementation of the Time Machine Infrastructure. This is a very important milestone that gives to Time Machine an excellent ecosystem to grow and thrive.
Meet the winning team behind EIT Culture & Creativity: ICE – Innovation by Creative Economy
Wonder who the founding partners of the EIT Culture & Creativity are, what EIT Culture & Creativity will do and achieve? Check out the factsheet below.
Press Release
EIT Culture & Creativity – a game-changing organisation for a prosperous Europe
The Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) has selected the ICE Partnership to establish the EIT Culture & Creativity. The ninth Innovation Community is set to start operations in 2023 with the mission to boost the competitiveness of European Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries (CCSI) and strengthen their role as drivers of prosperity for Europe.
The ICE partnership, coordinated by Fraunhofer and chaired by interim CEO, Bernd Fesel, was selected from among five consortia as announced on 23 June, in Budapest, Hungary. The winning proposition is designed to unlock the latent value of the cultural and creative sectors and industries to become a gamer changer for Europe’s Green, Digital and Social Transformation. The new pan-European partnership can expect to split approximately EUR 300 million of EIT funding under Horizon Europe (dedicated funding for two new EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) to be launched during the 2021-2027 EU funding period) with the possibility to leverage more funds from the private and public sector.
Upon the “Created in Europe” motto, the ICE partnership assembles a carefully crafted pan-European consortium of 50 excellent universities, research institutions, companies, investors, and associations relevant to all CCSI in 20 nations. “Diversity is the front door to innovation. We are proud to have built a consortium that is diverse in many ways, but especially one that honours the nature of European CCSI: ours is a sector made by a multitude of SMEs and very small players”, says Bernd Fesel, Interim CEO and spokesperson of the winning team.
The CCSI are key drivers of economic growth and job creation across Europe. They account for 5.5 percent of the EU’s total GDP and 6.2 percent of Europe’s workforce, 80% of all 2.9 million CCSI companies are small and micro-enterprises. At the same time, they are not just business -they stand for European diversity as well as its unity. EIT Culture & Creativity will be key to supporting Europe’s recovery and cohesion. “This will be an Open Innovation Community: Open to entrepreneurs, artists, freelancers, social innovators, and cultural agents. Innovation and change are possible when all players -the large and the small, for-profit and non-profit- meet at eye level in collaboration spaces for addressing pressing societal challenges”, concludes Fesel.
With headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, EIT Culture & Creativity will have six subsidiary offices, called Co-Location Centres, in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna, Helsinki, Kosice and Vienna. These regional hubs will realise this open vocation by engaging and channelling the needs and expectations of local and regional ecosystems and providing relevant Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) services suited to each ecosystem and stakeholder groups, including students, startups, VC investors, and policymakers.
About the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) strengthens Europe’s ability to innovate by powering solutions to pressing global challenges and by nurturing entrepreneurial talent to create sustainable growth and skilled jobs in Europe. The EIT is an EU body and an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The Institute supports dynamic pan-European partnerships, EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities, composed of leading companies, research labs and universities each dedicated to solving a pressing global challenge, from climate change to health, to renewable energy. Together with their leading partners, the EIT Community offers:
- entrepreneurial education degrees and courses across Europe that transform students into entrepreneurs such as Dora Palfi of imagiLabs, whose helping introduce coding to young women and girls, supported by EIT Digital.
- business creation and acceleration services that take ideas and budding businesses to the next level such as Northvolt manufacturing the world’s greenest lithium-ion batteries, supported by EIT InnoEnergy
- innovation-driven research projects that turn ideas into products connecting partners, investors and expertise, such as Diabeloop – D4Kids, an artificial intelligence system to improve type 1 diabetes management for children, supported by EIT Health.
The EIT is Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem bringing together close to 3,000 partners from top business, research and education organisations across Europe in over 60 innovation hubs across Europe. The EIT has powered more than 3,800 start-ups and scale-ups and created more than 1,400 new products and services that have gone to raise more than EUR 3.9 billion in external capital. More than 3,800 students have graduated from EIT labelled master and doctoral programmes and over 100,000 have participated in EIT Community entrepreneurial trainings.
