EIT DIGITAL 2020: FOR A STRONG DIGITAL EUROPE

Deadline: May 3, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

1 Executive Summary

On March 5, 2019, EIT Digital launches the construction of the ‘EIT Digital 2020’ activities and accepts submissions until May 3, 2019. EIT Digital 2020 is aimed at entrepreneurial minds planning to launch a digital tech startup or product, or to deliver entrepreneurial digital tech education programmes.

The EIT Digital work programme 2020 is guided by the EIT Digital Strategic Innovation Agenda 2020-2022, which identifies the five strategic areas of our work programme: Digital Tech, Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Wellbeing and Digital Finance. We consider these to be the key strategic areas to work on for a strong digital Europe.

During the period of March 5 to May 3, 2019, EIT Digital solicits proposals for its Innovation Factory and Entrepreneurship Academy. The selection will be finalised by the end of June 2019. Activities are typically expected to start on January 1, 2020.

EIT Digital will co-invest in selected proposals to create value for a strong digital Europe. The activities are typically executed in and around the EIT Digital Co-Location Centres (CLCs) for community building.

1.1 The EIT Digital Innovation Factory

The EIT Digital Innovation Factory supports pan-European entrepreneurial teams to launch new startups and new products. With our pre-incubation support, selected activities will be embedded in our European ecosystem and receive a financial co-investment to package their technology, sign up customers and attract investors.

New startups or new products created by pan-European teams from education, research and business organisations are a focus for EIT Digital.

Market or societal impact on the one hand, and contribution to the financial sustainability of EIT Digital on the other hand, are the two main dimensions of the EIT Digital Innovation Factory 2020.

We support entrepreneurial teams that are creating tangible impact. Proposals should address a specific business pain in any of our five strategic areas (section 1.5), build a specific plan leveraging a technology solution and presenting a clear go-to-market route by launching a startup or a product.

Selected activities will receive a co-investment from EIT Digital, with a return on investment expectation. Proposals are therefore requested to contribute to the financial sustainability of EIT Digital either through equity (for startup creation) or financial return mechanisms (for product launch).

Pan European innovation teams of two to five complementary organizations with a joint innovation plan are recommended.

In 2020, through agile, intensive pan European collaboration supported by EIT Digital, your team will create a startup or package a product as the outcome of your innovation activity. Successful activities will have strong customer and investor traction.

1.2 The EIT Digital Entrepreneurship Academy

Entrepreneurial education is a cornerstone in creating a Europe where industry and key public sectors are populated, on all levels, with knowledgeable, innovative and entrepreneurial people - people that in their personal capacity drive the innovation economy and create open and effective public organizations.

 

 

 

The EIT Digital Entrepreneurship Academy provides support for development and deployment of programmes and courses with business development-oriented components. The education paradigm is that learning must emulate the speed of business to meet disruptive technology and business model changes. Changing the scenario to integrate the learning of rapidly evolving technology with generic/transversal skills, and where continuous lifelong learning is an integrated part of work, is the only way to handle the needed speed. EIT Digital does this by:

• EIT Labelled Master and Doctoral educational programmes breeding engineers and researchers with an entrepreneurial mindset

• EIT Digital Certified Professional education at the technology and innovation front

• EIT Digital Summer Schools based on business development-oriented education through real case studies

EIT Digital adopts a Blended Education approach where students develop cutting edge digital knowledge merged with innovation and entrepreneurship skills. The settings can be physical or virtual classrooms, or combinations of both.

We have four Schools: Master School, Industrial Doctoral School, Professional School and Summer Schools.

In response to the EIT requirement to become sustainable, EIT Digital is developing and deploying its sustainability approach, which includes financial return on investment on its activities. Partners are invited to co-invest with us in order to benefit from the impact on working for the Education for people that will contribute to the digital transformation of Europe.

1.3 No innovation without education

Connecting innovation and education is fundamental in EIT Digital.

Get a strong competitive advantage by integrating Innovation and Education Activities in your proposal.

Have a proposal for the Digital Innovation Factory? Get access to the entrepreneurial talents of our Academy by offering internship positions to our students in your Innovation Activity. Benefit from the entrepreneurial skills of our graduates by involving them in your team.

Have a proposal for the Digital Entrepreneurship Academy? Identify thesis topics for our Industrial Doctoral School well aligned with our Innovation Areas. Include real business challenges from our Innovation Activities in your Summer School proposal.

1.4 How to participate

EIT Digital is a partnership organisation. This implies that proposers are expected to be or become partner of EIT Digital. Organisations that are not yet a partner are expected to submit their application for partnership latest at the moment of submission of the proposal.

Recommendation to Partners, especially to new Partners, is to be in contact with EIT Digital before submission in order to ensure full understanding of the requirements.

More information including details on how to submit your plan are available at www.EITDigital.eu/EITDigital2020.

 

1.5 Strategic areas

The EIT Digital Strategic Innovation Agenda 2020-2022 (SIA) identifies our five strategic areas. It is highly recommended to read about these areas in the SIA. An overview is available on page 15 of the SIA. More details on each area:

• Digital Tech: page 16

• Digital Cities: page 17

• Digital Industry: page 18

• Digital Wellbeing: page 19

• Digital Finance: page 20

 

2 EIT Digital Innovation Factory

The EIT Digital Innovation Factory supports pan European entrepreneurial teams to launch new startups and/or new products. With our pre-incubation support, you will be embedded in our European ecosystem and receive a financial co-investment to package your technology, sign up customers and attract investors.

New startups or new products created by pan-European teams from education, research and business organisations are a focus for EIT Digital.

More specifically, an innovation activity proposal needs to be submitted to a specific strategic area (section 1.5) by a team of typically 2 to 5 complementary organisations. It should be an agile, entrepreneurial project that belongs to one of two distinct types:

• It intends to create a startup

• It intends to launch a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP)

Activity proposals will be evaluated with respect to (i) their market or societal impact and (ii) their contribution to the financial sustainability of EIT Digital. These principles are depicted in the diagram on the right, where A refers to the Activities that we value most (high impact, high sustainability), followed by B (high impact, low sustainability) and C (low impact, high sustainability) in this order. Note that proposals with very low impact or very low sustainability stand a very slim chance of being selected. The review mechanism of the proposals is detailed in Annex B.3.

 

 

2.1 Impact

In the EIT Digital Innovation Factory, startup creation Activity proposals will be highly appreciated, with the credibility of the founding team from the perspective of a potential investor being an element that will strengthen the proposal. Spinoff creation from universities, research & technology organisations, or companies is a focus for EIT Digital.

If you are an existing entity launching an MVP, the involvement in the Activity of a clearly identified business line that will lead the Activity is an element that will strengthen the proposal.

In either case, you must “begin with the end in mind” and pinpoint the specific “business pain” that you are trying to solve. That could be an explicit, unmet need (e.g. voiced by customers) or an implicit, latent need (that you have identified). You need to describe how you package mature research results and adequate technologies to address that particular need in an impactful manner, and how your solution will concretely benefit the users. The inclusion of a customer or early adopter explicitly engaged in the Activity proposal will strengthen the proposal.

A key Partner is the Business Champion. It is an organisation that knows the customers’ needs, designs/packages the product (“product owner”) and brings it to the market. Examples of credible Business Champions include: a startup with an adequate founding team that will be created as an outcome of the Activity; the business line of a corporation leading the Activity. The Business Champion needs to commit to the go-to-market in the proposal, based on breakthrough technologies and validated research results provided by the technology provider. As a guideline, we recommend that the Lead Partner is also the Business Champion.

For agility, we recommend a limited group of Partners per Activity (two to five Partners); each Partner should propose engaged and entrepreneurial individual team members (including a strong Activity Leader preferably from the Lead Partner/Business Champion). The suggested line-up of Partner teams should run like a venture, and as a guideline, it should look as follows:

Technology Provider

Business Champion

Customers

• Partner 3:
Specific technology that will be packaged in the product.

• Partner 1:
Lead Partner and product owner.

• Partner 2:
Customer actually involved in the Activity.

Additional elements that will strengthen the proposal are:

• No innovation without education: Activities are encouraged to offer 3 to 6 months internships to EIT Digital Master School students working at the EIT Digital CLCs during the course of the Activities. Activities can also benefit from the entrepreneurial skills of the EIT Digital Master School graduates by involving them in the Activity teams. In either case, the Activity needs to plan the adequate budgets in the submission system.

• Respect of the guidelines and recommendations provided in this document. Please refer to sections B.3 to understand the detailed impact review mechanism.

 

 

2.2 Sustainability

In the context of the EIT Digital sustainability strategy, Innovation Activities are requested to contribute to the financial sustainability of EIT Digital either through equity (for startup creation) or financial return mechanisms (for product launch). Sustainability commitments of the Activities accepted in the EIT Digital Business Plan will be binding.

Each Innovation Activity belongs to one of two distinct types:

• It intends to create a startup

• It intends to create a minimum viable product (MVP)

  For the Activity type “startup creation”, the sustainability principle is for EIT Digital to receive an equity share in the startup. As a guideline, the level of shares expected to be attributed to EIT Digital is the following:

• EIT Digital’s equity percentage is determined by the EIT financial contribution as relative share of the total budget of the Activity. In other words, EIT Digital equity percentage = 0.5 x EIT financial contribution / KAVA.

• Example: EIT Digital receives a 32.5% equity in a startup resulting from an Innovation Activity with 65% EIT financial contribution and 35% co-funding.

  For the Activity type “new product creation”, the sustainability principle is for EIT Digital to receive a financial return to be defined and committed to in the Activity Proposal. The amount of the sustainability contribution up until five years after the completion of the Activity (i.e. by end of 2025) will be an important factor in the evaluation process. For this Activity type, some sustainability mechanism examples that we provide as guidelines are:

• Fixed sum: financial return to EIT Digital is independent of Activity’s financial projections, it is a guaranteed fixed sum up until 5 years after the completion of the Activity.

• Business dependent: financial return to EIT Digital is dependent on Activity’s financial projections up until 5 years after the completion of the Activity; one such example is revenue sharing.

Activity Proposals may come up with other financial sustainability mechanisms to be described at the time of the submission. They will be evaluated as part of the overall proposal review. It should be noted that the sustainability mechanism depicted in the proposal should not assume any additional support to be provided by EIT Digital (e.g. sales support, additional co-investment etc.).

Please refer to section B.3 to understand the detailed sustainability review mechanism.

2.3 Additional information

Process

The detailed process including requirements, criteria and evaluation methodology for Innovation Activity Proposals is detailed in Annex B.

 

Proposals involving Cross-KIC Collaboration

Proposals involving cross-KIC collaboration (X-KIC) are welcome. The various sub-projects need to be submitted to the respective KICs and will be evaluated by those KICs. The proposals should demonstrate the need for multidisciplinary collaboration and should contain at least one partner from each KIC, including at least one business partner. Partners should request EIT financial support from the KIC in which they are a Partner (in case they are Partner in multiple KICs, they should only ask EIT financial support from one KIC). Activity proposals that fall into this category need to indicate this in their proposals via the box that is provided for this purpose.

Early Bird Activity start in 2019

To facilitate an agile execution of the entrepreneurial projects that want to start already in 2019, EIT Digital offers the opportunity to apply for the Early Bird support. Innovation Activities that want to apply for this support, must indicate it in their submission for 2020 in the “Innovation Activity Specifics” tab. Here, the proposal authors should also indicate how they intend to split the budget between 2019 and 2020 EIT Digital Business Plans. If the Early Bird proposal is accepted, then the additional 2019 Activity will be included in the Business Plan 2019 amendment that EIT Digital will submit in September 2019.

Please note that only proposals placed A or B are potentially eligible for Early Bird support (see Annex A for details on the placement mechanism).

Additional sustainability mechanisms

In addition to the sustainability mechanisms above, which are required, additional sustainability mechanisms, such as leveraging of national instruments or alternative income generation mechanisms to finance the execution of the Activity are welcome and will strengthen the Activity proposal.

 

3 EIT Digital Entrepreneurship Academy

3.1 Schools

Education in EIT Digital is organised along four Schools, Master School (MSL), Industrial Doctoral School (iDSL), Professional School (PSL) and Summer Schools (SSC), which together form the EIT Digital Entrepreneurship Academy. A thread of online education runs across all four schools, although it is preeminent in the MSL and PSL. Notably, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) education is developed and delivered across the schools. EIT Digital seeks to use this opportunity to bring greater innovation to the education that it delivers, ensuring enhanced alignment with the changing business and technology practices brought about by the digital transformation.

Master School (MSL)

The EIT Digital Master School educates digital engineers with advanced knowledge in key digital technology areas combined with Innovation and Entrepreneurship skills leading to unique digital transformation competencies. The goal is to establish a globally recognized digital Master education brand.

The two-year Master School programme portfolio comprises seven key digital topics answering to the digital competencies needed in the future.

Industrial Doctoral School (iDSL)

The EIT Digital Industrial Doctoral School educates digital leaders with a thesis-proven research competence combined with an industrial learning by doing experience in innovation and digital transformation. The goal is to establish a globally recognized Industrial Doctoral education brand for the digital transformation.

Professional School (PSL)

The EIT Digital Professional School teaches new digital competencies to European professionals using blended online and face to face learning. New digital competencies learned in the context of digital transformation creates the personal platform needed for a career change or a career promotion. The blended format allows for parallel work and study. PSL will focus on developing and deploying a portfolio of courses that address the identified needs of European professionals.

Summer School (SSL)

The EIT Digital Summer Schools engage and activate the global EIT Digital ecosystem, local industry partners and scaleups to provide innovation challenges. Local and global university students and researchers together with industry professionals solve real business challenges (ERB). In particular the Summer Schools offer intensive two-week experience of real-world innovation and entrepreneurship cases.

For more information about the EIT Digital Academy please refer to the EIT Digital Strategic Innovation Agenda 2020-2022.

 

 

3.2 Education Activity Proposals

3.2.1 Mindset

To complement our existing entrepreneurial education in the Master, Doctoral, Professional, and Summer Schools, EIT Digital seeks Activity Proposals of the following kind:

EIT Digital Master School (MSL)

EIT labelled Master programmes
EIT Digital is seeking proposals for new Master programmes and proposal to join existing ones.

Concerning proposals for new two-year Master programmes aimed to complement the existing portfolio of digital Master programmes. The selected topics for new proposals are:

• FinTech Programme is created to educate technical people on the area of digital finance.

• Digital Factories Programme is created to educate technical people on the area of digital industry, in particular in the digital transformation of factories. Only proposals for these two topics will be accepted.

As regards proposals to join existing programmes, proposals that add value to the current programme offering are particularly welcome. Different ways to add value include but are not limited to:

• Offering specialisations that integrate with existing specialisations to offer a holistic approach to the discipline.

• Offering entries/exits in locations that are currently underserved or under-represented. New partner universities must be located in areas that easily accessible from EIT Digital Co-location Centres or Satellites.

• Offering specialisations that are strongly aligned with Europe ́s strategic goals in digital transformation.

• Offering disciplines or specialisations with the potential to attract large number of students.

• Offering internship opportunities to students which can significantly contribute to ERB integration (Education, Research, Business).

The Blended Masters consist of a set of MOOCs that comprise an online 1st semester (30 ECTS) of a Campus Master programme. It is central that the 1st semester Blended Master can be accredited with 30 ECTS and hence yields access to the Campus Master (2nd semester).

The aim is to create Blended Masters for all Campus Master programmes. In the present round we are implementing the Cybersecurity Blended Master.

It is noteworthy to highlight the key role of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) minor in EIT-labelled Master programmes. When offering a programme of the EIT Digital Master School, partner universities commit to offer an integrated I&E Minor in accordance with the then current EIT Digital I&E education specifications and implementation guidelines.

Cybersecurity Blended Master

EIT Digital seeks proposals from teams of partner Universities on the production of Cybersecurity Blended Master based on Campus Master programmes. EIT Digital will provide production support through its online support team, where learning design and media production competencies are available. Also support for interfacing with Coursera is available.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Education

EIT Digital seeks proposals aiming at:

• Continuously improving the blended I&E Minor courses offered across the EIT Digital network of universities, by (1) increasing use of the EIT Digital online I&E contents in the courses, by (2) developing and applying methodologies to continuously increase the quality of the blending models and pedagogical methods used, and/or by (3) further enhancing Education-Research- Business integration and industry connection within the I&E Minor and Master School.

• Offering a wider and differentiated pan-European I&E education experience, by (1) developing suitable settings to engage students in cross-universities collaborative work, and/or by (2) developing a portfolio of I&E elective courses accessible online/remotely to students from all partner universities, using EIT Digital online I&E contents, aligned with EIT Digital strategic areas and Master School programs.

EIT Digital Industrial Doctoral School (iDSL)

For the iDSL we seek proposals for doctoral thesis topics clearly linked to EIT Digital strategic areas with high industrial and academic relevance.

PhD thesis proposals

Suggested topics should have high academic and industrial quality and should be aligned with EIT Digital strategic areas. Proposed topics should reflect a clear relation of the research topic with the business or innovation lines of the industrial partner. A commitment from a university and an industrial partner is required. The industrial partner must co-finance with EIT Digital a doctoral student scholarship for minimum 3 years. More details can be found in Annex C.

EIT Digital will continue the ongoing local recruitment of new iDSL PhD candidates. The format and timeline for the local recruitments will be decided on between EIT Digital and its local ecosystem industrial and university partners.

EIT Digital Professional School (PSL)

Professional School (PSL) Blended Courses combine online (eLearning and/or mobile learning) with face2face classes. EIT Digital uses a format where pre-assignment (self-contained) online courses serve as a basis for face2face seminars. The online pre-assignment typically corresponds to 3 to 5 ECTS and the seminars are 1-5 days.

I&E proposals are expected for projects to be run in 2020 and for Early Bird projects to be run in 2019.

In their proposals, partner universities commit to develop and deliver courses and pedagogical assets in accordance with the current EIT Digital I&E education specifications and implementation guidelines.

The requirements on Master School proposals can be found in Annex C.

 

Proposals can address the development and deployment of new courses for Activities to be run in 2020 or the improvement of existing courses of the Professional School portfolio including new content or new technological innovations to improve the student experience for Early Bird Activities to be run in 2019.

Topics should be aligned with our five strategic focus areas.

EIT Digital Summer Schools (SSC)

EIT Digital Summer Schools are seeking proposals for a) continuing with the existing summer school format, b) new summer school programmes with the existing format and c) and new summer school formats.

Proposals that add value to the current summer schools offering are particularly welcome. Different ways to add value include but are not limited to:

• Offering topics, locations and formats with the potential to attract large number of participants.

• Offering topics that complement the existing topics to offer a holistic approach to digitalization.

• Offering topics that are strongly aligned with Europe ́s strategic goals in digital transformation.

The Summer Schools are open to non-EIT Digital students from non-partner and partner universities and professionals from non-partner and partner companies/organisations. Local organizers are encouraged to be active in engaging non-EIT Digital students and industry professionals.

The summer schools topics cover business case areas that are aligned with the EIT Digital strategic areas, referring to areas where the innovation and digital transformation potential is high. Professional business coaches lead the summer school teams to create new business models and cases.

When making a proposal for a Summer School, partners commit to comply with the organizational guidelines and offer I&E education in accordance with the then current EIT Digital Summer Schools I&E education implementation guidelines.

 

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