EIT Culture & Creativity: ECF in the winning consortium to lead Europe’s biggest innovation community for culture and creativity
15 Oct 2022
On 23 June, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has announced the winning consortium to lead Europe’s biggest innovation community for the cultural and creative sectors and industries. The EIT Culture & Creativity, as designed by the ICE partnership that won the highly competitive bid, is a game-changer for Europe’s green, digital and social transformation.
The European Cultural Foundation is part of the carefully crafted pan-European partnership bringing together 50 partners from 20 countries across Europe, big and small, to boost culture and creative industries and strengthen their role in and for Europe. The multi-million partnership unites top-level universities, research institutions, businesses, foundations and associations which will work together as an open innovation community. The EIT will provide the winning partnership with a start-up grant of up to EUR 6 million to ensure they become fully operational as soon as possible. As the partnership reaches its full speed the annual grant will be increased, and could reach approximately EUR 70 million per year under the current Horizon Europe programme. Additionally, the Innovation Community is expected to leverage more funds from the private and public sectors.
The EIT Culture & Creativity will train the sector’s future entrepreneurs, power its cutting-edge ventures, and deliver innovative solutions to the challenges facing the cultural and creative sectors. The EIT Culture & Creativity will be the platform to experiment with new forms of partnerships and funding models for the cultural and creative eco system. The European Cultural Foundation will bring its knowledge, capacity and networks to the innovation community and through partnership with stellar organisations amplify its scale and impact
The assets and expectations ECF brings to EIT Culture & Creativity
The mission of the EIT Culture & Creativity is to inspire, facilitate and support collaborative innovation in the cultural and creative sectors and industries and to boost Europe’s competitiveness.
The European Cultural Foundation’s mission is to strengthen a European sentiment through cultural and educational action that let us share, experience and imagine Europe – all of which the EIT Culture & Creativity will be investing in. the European Cultural Foundation considers culture as the fundament of Europe and an essential element to foster Europe as an open, inclusive and democratic cultural space – a vision that is fully shared by the winning consortium.
The European Cultural Foundation’s advocacy, eg. the Cultural Deal for Europe, calls on EU, national and local decision-makers to strengthen their investment in culture, especially after the impact of Covid-19, and with the view to foster Europe’s green, digital and social transformation.
Within the world of foundations, the European Cultural Foundation– Europe’s first European cultural foundation – campaigns for European philanthropy to unfold as private money for the public good plays a significant role (foundation budgets in Europe amount to €60 billion annually) while very little of this investment is geared towards Europe.
About the European Institue of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
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 60+ innovation hubs. The EIT is an EU body and an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Through dynamic pan-European partnerships, called Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) the EIT Community offers a wide range of innovation and entrepreneurship activities, strengthening Europe’s ability to innovate and powering solutions to pressing global challenges while nurturing entrepreneurial talent to create sustainable growth and skilled jobs in Europe.
