EIT Digital Entrepreneurial Academy 2024

EIT Digital Entrepreneurial Academy 2024 Entrepreneurial education is a cornerstone in creating a Europe where industry and key public sectors are populated, on all levels, with knowledgeable, innovative and entrepreneurial people that drive the innovation economy and create open and effective public organisations.

The EIT Digital Entrepreneurial Academy supports the development and deployment of programmes and courses with business development-oriented components. The education paradigm is that learning must emulate the speed of business to meet disruptive technology and business model changes. EIT Digital does this by:

• EIT Labelled Master educational programmes breeding talents with an entrepreneurial mindset,
• EIT Digital Summer School based on innovation and business education through real cases studies,
• EIT Digital Professional Education at the technology and innovation front.

In 2024, they seek Activity proposals for the Summer School. Partners are invited to co-invest with us and benefit from the impact of improved Education contributing to the digital transformation of Europe and the creation of a European talent pool and a digitally skilled workforce.

• Summer School
  • The EIT Digital Summer School organises programmes that combine state-of-the-art excellence in key digital technologies and societal and industrial applications with expertise in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E). EIT Digital aims at building a portfolio of 5 two-week summer schools and 5 one-week summer schools.
• Two-Week Summer Schools
  • The two-week Summer Schools host students from the EIT Digital Master School. The main objective of these programmes is to cultivate creativity and critical thinking in students to help them identify innovative business opportunities. During the first week, students deep dive into emerging technologies with focused lectures, keynotes by academics and practitioners, and meetings with professionals. During the second week, students work in teams and are supported by coaches to acquire knowledge, skills, and practical experience necessary to conceptualize, develop, and launch their own entrepreneurial ventures.
  • Programmes are delivered between the month of July and mid-August 2024. Each programme is designed for a minimum capacity of 40 participants and includes accommodation in shared room option, meals (breakfast, lunches, and some dinners during the social events) and social events also during the weekend. Travels for the Master School students to reach the programme are excluded. The key ingredients of a strong and impactful proposal are:
    • The Topic. The proposal must provide evidence of the alignment with one of the five strategic focus areas described in the EIT Digital Strategic Innovation Agenda 2022-2024: Digital Tech, Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Wellbeing and Digital Finance.
    • The Location. An easily accessible location in Europe to facilitate the organisation of travels.
    • Focus on venture creation. The proposal must provide details on how the students will be encouraged to submit their initial business concepts before the programme officially begins and on how students will be divided into teams to work collaboratively on venture creation projects.
    • Experience: The proposal provides evidence of a strong track record in venture creation process and evidence of the ability to guide participants effectively.
    • Collaboration with Industry. Partners teaming up with companies able to help the students by providing business concepts for venture creation will score higher in the review process.
• One-Week Summer Schools
  • The one-week Summer Schools are designed for doctoral students, researchers, young professionals and other willing to deep dive into emerging technologies and learn how to create new businesses using these technologies. Programmes are delivered between the month of July and mid-August 2024. Each programme is designed for a minimum capacity of 40 participants and includes a welcome event the day before the programme, lunches, outdoor social activities. Travels and accommodations for participants are excluded.
  • The key ingredients of a strong and impactful proposal are:
    • The Topic. Evidence of the attractiveness of the topic, based on market studies of learning needs, must be demonstrated. Favourite topics are High-Performance Computing (Quantum Computing), Generative AI, Defense, Space, Green Digital. Other disruptive deep-tech topics will also be considered.
    • The Location. An easily accessible location in Europe with the potential to attract many participants.
    • Support to the marketing campaign. The proposal must provide details on how the Partner will support EIT Digital to increase the number of paying participants during the marketing and sales campaign.
    • Experience: The proposal provides evidence of a strong track record in the organisation of deep-tech education programmes.
    • Collaboration with Industry. Partners teaming up with organisations with a strong local industrial network able to support the recruitment of participants (for instance via prepaid scholarships) will score higher in the review process. These organisations can be, for instance, regional funds, education funds, associations of startups/companies operating in one specific sector, etc.

Funding Information

• The maximum EIT funding amount is 30,000 € per one-week Summer School programme.
• The maximum EIT funding amount is 85,000 € per two-week Summer School programme.

Eligibility Criteria

• EIT Digital is a partnership-based organization. Therefore, proposers are expected to be or become Partner of EIT Digital. Organisations that are not yet Partners are expected to submit their partnership application, at the latest, at the submission of the proposal.
• A recommendation to Partners, especially to new Partners, is to be in contact with EIT Digital before the submission date to ensure a clear understanding of the requirements.
• For partners from the UK and Switzerland
  • Since the UK and Switzerland have not concluded an association with Horizon Europe at the time of publication of this document.
• For partners from Hungary
  • This is to inform you that Council Implementing Decision 2022/2506 might directly impact the implementation of summer School grant. This Decision stipulates that legal commitments must not be entered into with any public interest trusts established on the basis of the Hungarian Act IX of 2021 or any entity maintained by such a public interest trust. This applies as of 16 December 2022 for as long as the measures are in place. They advise partners from these countries to connect with the relevant Regional Directors to confirm under which conditions they can participate in the Entrepreneurial Academy 2024.

For more information, visit EIT Digital.