The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has announced the winners of a call for EIT Raw Materials, an integrated European partnership of higher education, business and research aiming to tackle societal challenges across Europe.
The winner of the EIT Raw Materials 2014 Call for Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) Proposals was RawMatTERS, a consortium that brings together more than 100 partners from 20 EU Member States, including KGHM Polish Copper S.A. from Poland, Sweden’s RISE Research Institute and the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.
EIT Raw Materials was designated as an EIT KIC by the EIT Governing Board on 9 December 2014. KICs are the instruments through which the EIT achieves its mission, by fully integrating all three sides of the ‘knowledge triangle’ - higher education, research and business. At the same time as its announcement of the EIT Raw Materials call, EIT also announced the winners of a call for EIT Health.
"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,” EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Tibor Navracsics said in a statement on the EIT website.
Prof. Jens Gutzmer from the RawMatTERS consortium’s key coordinating partner Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf said that the EIT would enable the 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. We want to focus on sustainable growth and job creation by boosting start-ups, SMEs and education.” He said that the consortium aimed to create 64 start-ups and 5 new primary/secondary sources of critical raw materials (CRM) by 2022.
In order to facilitate a rapid and smooth start during their first year, the EIT will provide each of the winners with a start-up grant of up to EUR 4 million. The KICs are expected to become fully operational shortly after having signed a seven-year Framework Partnership Agreement with the EIT in 2015.