EIT Health initiatives nominated for European Association Awards

StarShip and Jumpstarter

The EIT Health InnoStars StarShip programme and the Cross-KIC Jumpstarter programme were nominated for European Association Awards, which celebrate the vital work that the European Associations do for and on behalf of their members.

Award winners are to be announced on 28 March 2019, during the Awards Ceremony in Brussels. StarShip and Jumpstarter were both nominated in the Best Training Initiative category.

StarShip (pictured) is a unique European year-long training programme created by EIT Health InnoStars. The main goal of the programme is to train the next generation of leaders in healthcare innovation, by providing hands-on experience using the Stanford Biodesign Methodology and giving participants a business toolbox for healthcare innovation. Since 2016, some 60 best-in-class participants were trained, and five companies from five countries were involved.

Project partners include: University of Coimbra, IESE Business School, RISE – Research Institute of Sweden, Instituto Pedro Nunes together with other partnering companies.

Jumpstarter, or the Joint Business Ideas Competition is a unique cross-industrial incubation programme created by EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials and EIT Food. More than 200 teams applied in 2018 for the programme, which is designed to create a sustainable impact in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe by boosting innovation and entrepreneurship to revolutionise the EU market.

Teams learn basic entrepreneurial skills, gain an understanding of market segmentation, develop value propositions, and work on leveraging their competitive advantage. Following six months of training and mentoring, chosen teams pitched their ideas to an international expert jury at the Joint Grand Final in November.