WIREDGOV

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is today launching the ‘EIT Community Booster – Scaling New European Bauhaus Ventures' in order to support the New European Bauhaus initiative. This first call will support 20 innovative companies with a budget of up to €50,000 each to accelerate solutions integrating sustainability (from climate goals, to circularity, zero pollution, and biodiversity), aesthetics (quality of experience and style, beyond functionality) and inclusion (including diversity first, securing accessibility and affordability).

This call is part of a wider €5 million budget for New European Bauhaus activities supported by the new EIT Community in 2021 to 2022. The EIT Community Booster call is open until 17 December 2021. Start-ups and scale-ups are encouraged to apply and scale their venture. A pilot phase of this Community Booster launched early 2021 has already supported 13 ventures with a total of €650,000.

Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel said:

"The New European Bauhaus is going from design to concrete results thanks to the direct support to European innovators by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. The initiative contributes to the European Green Deal, but also to our new ambitious EU Missions under Horizon Europe. I look forward to all innovative ideas and products from talented European entrepreneurs for our public spaces and Europe's sustainable growth.”

Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, said:

”For the New European Bauhaus to reach regions and cities across Europe and beyond, we need to foster innovative business concepts and ideas.  Our strength is working together, involving businesses, regional and local communities and creative minds, engaging in a truly participatory and transdisciplinary approach. Innovative business ventures can be an engine of the tangible change we aim to achieve in our society, and I am glad to see the EIT foster such movement towards sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion.”

This joint EIT Community New European Bauhaus initiative has a budget of €5 million for 2021 and 2022 to:

• provide acceleration services and support New European Bauhaus-related entrepreneurs, innovators and ventures;
• create and mobilise citizen driven initiatives;
• offer entrepreneurial training activities and education resources in upskilling and lifelong learning.

EIT's support to the New European Bauhaus

Throughout the year, the EIT Community has greatly supported the first phase of the New European Bauhaus. A joint EIT Community New European Bauhaus initiative was deployed to increase citizens' engagement and involve communities in the co-design of sustainable public spaces to deliver on the goals of the European Green Deal.

Successful EIT Community activities for the New European Bauhaus already underway include:

• helping innovators and entrepreneurs from Central and Eastern Europe to develop and launch their business in relation to the New European Bauhaus thanks to the EIT Jumpstarter programme;
• awarding grants for citizen-led projects, from transforming parking spaces into playgrounds and working with the elderly, to climate-proof heritage sites;
• integrating a specific New European Bauhaus' focus within the 2021 Climathon. This ‘hackathon' gathers diverse participants from 150 towns and cities around the world to raise climate awareness, disrupt the status-quo, and rethink the spaces we live in and the future we want as citizens.

Click here for the full press release