The beautiful city of Budapest was the chosen location to gather for the first time our 12 EIT Urban Mobility RIS Hubs. During a two day face-to-face and semi-online event taking place between 8-9 March 2022 in the EIT Community Hub office, representatives from Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Turkiye get to know each other and the EIT Urban Mobility Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) Team.
On the first day, marked by International Women day, the EIT Urban Mobility CEO, Maria Tsavachidis, made the inauguration speech, dedicated to the given day, and specially to the situation in Ukraine. The RIS Manager, Bence Huba, welcomed all the participants, highlighting the importance of their commitment and the mission they are performing in the RIS countries where we aim to improve urban mobility and reinforce the synergies between local knowledge triangle actors.
During the initial session the RIS business activity plan was addressed, and the hubs could introduce themselves, as well as their consortia and activities. The first day of the summit ended with a workshop from our Business Creation thematic area.
On the second day, it was the turn to get to know better all the details for the Innovation calls for the next Business Plan 2023-25. During the Academy session, the RIS Hubs learnt how to run a citython and the opportunities we offer in our Competence Hub. Also, the new EIT Urban Mobility partnership model was presented with the new opportunities that our organisation can offer to different types of stakeholders.
After the presentation on Communication, the summit culminated with a cross-Hub workshop led by Ákos Dervalics, from EIT Urban Mobility RIS Hub Hungary. The goal of the initiative is to build a resilient ecosystem for the future and economical sustainability of the RIS Hubs. Different working groups have been created to work on how to educate the community, provide opportunities for innovators and help them to scale and provide access to finance using a unique platform.
This was the first EIT UM RIS Hub Summit but more will come during the year connected to the different activities and topics related to the business plan.
