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:
“I should think the American admiration of five-minute tourists has done more to kill the sacredness of old European beauty and aspiration than multitudes of bombs would have done.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“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)
“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)