- Organised by the EIT Community under the title ‘The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and the new European Innovation Agenda’, the Spanish innovation ecosystem met yesterday in Madrid.
- The event was attended by the Director General of the CDTI, Javier Ponce, the Secretary-General for Innovation, Teresa Riesgo, and brought together a large part of the Spanish innovation ecosystem.
- The EIT Community has renewed its commitment to innovation in Spain through various communities and programmes. In the last two years, EIT has supported hundreds of startups and invested more than €100 million in Spain, helping to bring more than 80 innovative products to market.
Madrid, 10 October 2023 – The EIT Community, the most significant innovation ecosystem in Europe, is a decisive agent for boosting innovation in Spain and contributing to its leadership in Europe. This was stated yesterday by the heads of the different knowledge and innovation communities in Spain of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
This satellite event of the official agenda, organised on the occasion of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, brought together a large part of the Spanish innovation ecosystem. It emphasised the importance of the collaborative and interdisciplinary work promoted by the different EIT communities to tackle today’s society’s complex challenges, focusing on the various cross-sectoral programmes developed by the EIT Community to boost Spain’s innovative leadership in Europe and to support the New European Innovation Agenda, approved by the Commission in July.
The impact of the EIT in Spain and the need for cross-sectoral collaboration
“The EIT, Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem, can be proud of its active presence and support for innovation in Spain. Our innovation and knowledge communities have attracted 250 partners from different sectors, including academic institutions, companies, and research organisations. Together, we have supported hundreds of start-ups and thousands of students on their journey through innovation, investing around EUR 100 million in Spain in the last two years alone and helping to bring more than 80 innovative products to market. Our commitment to Spain will continue to grow because innovation is needed more than ever to tackle some of the biggest global challenges and drive a more sustainable future for Europe,” said Martin Kern, Director of the EIT.
The event discussed the importance of the interdisciplinary and intersectoral approach to boost innovation in our country and its leadership in Europe, in line with the new European Innovation Agenda. In addition, a wide range of topics were addressed during the interventions of the representatives of each of the KICs, from the strategies to support startups, innovation and entrepreneurship to DeepTech, cities and climate transition, or the role of culture in innovation, skills and the talent of the future.
During the event, three main ideas were highlighted:
- Innovation is, more than ever, cross-cutting. The majority the initiatives and projects fit into various Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)
- We face a systemic transformation that needs collaborative solutions to adapt to the current societal challenges’ scale, urgency, and complexity.
- Co-creating solutions is not enough: Innovation has to be consolidated; it has to be implemented.
The EIT Day ended with the intervention of Teresa Riesgo, Secretary General for Innovation of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, who highlighted the long history of EIT in supporting innovation in Europe and stressed the importance of cross-cutting meetings such as this one. Finally, Riesgo warned of the need to develop policies that do not contribute to generating inequality in access to innovation between the different regions of Europe.
