3. Broad lines of the activities

The EIT shall operate mainly through the KICs particularly in areas which offer a true innovation potential. While the KICs have overall substantial autonomy in defining their own strategies and activities, there are a number of innovative features common to all KICs where coordination and synergies shall be sought. The EIT will moreover enhance its impact by disseminating good practices on how to integrate the knowledge triangle and the development of entrepreneurship, integrating relevant new partners where they can provide added value, and by actively fostering a new culture of knowledge sharing. The EIT shall aim to create an environment to develop the innovative potential of people and to capitalise on their ideas, irrespective of their place in the innovation chain. Thereby, the EIT will also help to address the 'European paradox' that excellent existing research is far from being harnessed to the full. In doing so, the EIT shall help to bring ideas to the market. Chiefly through its KICs and its focus on fostering entrepreneurial mindsets, it will create new business opportunities in the form of both start-ups and spin-offs but also within existing industry. Focus will be on all forms of innovation, including technological, social and non-technological innovation. The EIT's strategy and activities shall be driven by a focus on areas which offer a true innovation potential and have a clear relevance to the societal challenges addressed in Horizon 2020. By addressing key societal challenges in a comprehensive way, the EIT will promote inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches and help focus the research efforts of the partners in the KICs. The EIT shall fully integrate education and training at all stages of careers and support and facilitate the development of new and innovative curricula to reflect the need for new profiles engendered by complex societal and economic challenges. To this end, the EIT will play a key role in promoting new joint or multiple degrees and diplomas in Member States, respecting the principle of subsidiarity. The EIT will also play a substantial role in fine-tuning the concept of 'entrepreneurship' through its educational programmes, which promote entrepreneurship in a knowledge-intensive context, building on innovative research and contributing to solutions of high societal relevance. The EIT shall aim to pioneer new approaches in innovation and to develop a common innovation and knowledge-transfer culture, including in SMEs. This could happen, inter alia, by sharing the diverse experience of the KICs through various dissemination mechanisms, such as a stakeholder platform and a fellowship scheme. The EIT acts conscientious of the global context it operates in and shall help to forge links with key international partners in accordance with Article 27(2). By scaling up centres of excellence through the KICs and by fostering new educational opportunities, it will aim to make Europe more attractive for talent from abroad. The EIT will make a strong contribution to the objectives set in Horizon 2020, in particular by addressing societal challenges in a way complementing other initiatives in these areas. Within the framework of Horizon 2020 it will test out new and simplified approaches to funding and governance and thereby play a pioneering role within the European innovation landscape. Part of the annual contribution will be attributed to KICs in a competitive way. The EIT's approach to funding will be firmly based on a strong leverage effect, mobilising both public and private funds at national and Union level, and it will be communicated, in a transparent manner, to the Member States and relevant stakeholders. Moreover, it will employ entirely new vehicles for targeted support to individual activities through the EIT Foundation. Through the KICs and their co-location centres – nodes of excellence, bringing together higher education, research and business partners in a given geographical location – the EIT will also be linked to regional policy. In particular, it shall ensure a better connection between higher education institutions, the labour market and regional innovation and growth, in the context of regional and national smart specialisation strategies. In doing so, it will contribute to the objectives of the Union's cohesion policy.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-03 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.