On December 9th EIT announced the winners of the call for EIT Health and EIT Raw Materials, integrated European partnerships of higher education, business and research aiming to tackle societal challenges across Europe.
"Ageing societies and our dependence on raw materials pose serious challenges to the EU. Science and innovation have a crucial part to play in tackling them. I am therefore very pleased to see the EIT getting these two strategic partnerships underway," said Tibor Navracsics, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.
The winning consortia bring together more than 150 partners from 20 EU Member States. "The outstanding factor behind the decision was the potential of the winners to create innovations needed to address critical challenges for today’s societies. EIT Health and EIT Raw Materials are excellent partnerships that will generate impact, in terms of growth and job creation, which are at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy and President Juncker’s Commission top priorities," said Martin Kern, EIT Interim Director.
InnoLife - winner of EIT Health (healthy living and active ageing) - is a consortium of more than 50 core partners (and in addition 90 associate organisations) of leading businesses, research centres and universities from 9 EU countries. Dr. Ursula Redeker from Roche Diagnostics GmbH, the key coordinating partner, said "We are thrilled to win the EIT’s call. Our partnership’s goal is to promote entrepreneurship and develop innovations in healthy living and active ageing, providing Europe with new opportunities and resources. We will achieve this by delivering products, services and concepts that will improve quality of life and contribute to the sustainability of healthcare across Europe."
RawMatTERS - winner of EIT Raw Materials (sustainable exploration, extraction, processing, recycling and substitution) - brings together more than 100 partners from 20 EU Member States. Prof. Jens Gutzmer from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, the key coordinating partner said "The EIT will enable our partnership to make a real societal change and to turn the challenge of raw materials dependence into a strategic strength for Europe. Our goal is to boost the competitiveness, growth and attractiveness of the European raw materials sector via radical innovation and entrepreneurship."
"With the support of the EIT and funds from Horizon 2020, these partnerships have a great opportunity to attract the best researchers, students and entrepreneurs. This will be crucial to ensure that they contribute to our efforts to improve Europe’s innovation capacity and competitiveness," said Commissioner Navracsics.
