The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is an agency of the European Union which was established on 11 March 2008. It was set up in order to "address Europe's innovation gap", and is the EU's flagship education institute designed to assist innovation, research and growth in the European Union. The idea of a European Institute of Innovation and Technology has been developed within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs, and has been specifically implemented to address Europe’s innovation shortcomings. It is based on the concept that innovation is a key driver of growth, competitiveness, and social well-being.
The EIT has established its headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, in April 2010. The EIT is not a research centre and does not directly contribute to financing individual projects. Instead, it provides grants to so‑called "Knowledge and Innovation Communities", composed of networks of existing businesses, research institutes and education institutions or universities which work together around innovation projects and assist or fund individual innovators and entrepreneurs, all over Europe. The three first innovation communities of the EIT have been selected in December 2009 and are established in co‑location centres (i.e., places where they can physically work together) in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Belgium, and Poland.
Famous quotes containing the words european, institute, innovation and/or technology:
“So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)