EIT Health Hubs together for building the biggest community of healthcare innovators in emerging Europe

First EIT Health RIS Assembly 2020 took place in Budapest

The first EIT Health RIS Assembly took place on 11–13 February 2020, in Budapest, Hungary. Fourteen Hubs from thirteen countries discussed the 2020 EIT Regional Innovation Scheme goals and summarized last year’s achievements. The new editions of the programmes, supported by EIT Health and targeted at talents from emerging regions, were also announced.

“This is the third consecutive year of developing regional innovation ecosystems in emerging Europe through EIT Regional Innovation Scheme. Importance of EIT RIS is increasing. Today with 14 EIT Health Hubs we constitute the biggest community of healthcare innovators in emerging Europe. This is absolute unique programme”, underlined Monika Toth, EIT Health RIS Programme Manager, EIT Health InnoStars.

Today, the community of healthcare innovators is being developed with the support of 14 EIT Health Hubs located in 13 regions from the Baltics through CEE up to Southern Europe. The network includes leading regional incubators, accelerators, prominent medical universities, research centres and institutes. The programme, which has been coordinated by InnoStars since 2016, was created by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, to promote healthcare innovation in countries with the modest and moderate innovation capacity and to close the skills gap between more advanced and progressing European regions. Additionally, its aim is to match healthcare innovators from the EIT Health network with the talent pool and innovative organisations from the emerging regions.

“2019 was an important milestone in the development of the EIT RIS in the field of healthcare. Talents from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe were better recognised on the pan-European level through hosting acceleration and education programmes. Twelve new consortia were built and over 600 talents received training. Now it’s time for the next step – building an even stronger community and focusing on the sustainability of innovation projects”, said Balazs Furjes, Managing Director of EIT Health InnoStars.

What does the EIT Health RIS have in common with Smart Umbrella?

The regions included in the EIT Health RIS are full of innovators on different stages of development. One of them is a Smart Umbrella, a team from Riga Stradins University (RSU), Latvia set up by two medical students, who took part in iDays 2019. The project’s vision is to create a device that can help detect the most common type of stroke – ischemic stroke. The team is on the early stage of development but until know their business model got the attention of the jury of iDays which awarded them with the second place. The team is going to take another step in the EIT Health journey and apply to different accelerator programmes this year.

“One of the most important elements of the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme is to find the most promising innovation projects in the developing regions. Such projects as Smart Umbrella might not have been noticed if we have not organised the iDays”– said Monika Toth.

New editions of the programmes 2020

This year, talents from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe might participate in the following EIT Health programmes, among others:

• EIT Health Innovation Days
• EIT Health StarShip
• LS Hard Skills 
• EIT Health L-ead Summer School
• InnoStars Awards (application deadline: 27 March 2020)
• Start-ups Meet Pharma (application deadline: 30 March 2020)
• Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship Skills in the Southern EIT RIS region (more information available soon)

More information about the acceleration programmes can be found on innostarter.eithealth.eu.

Morning Health Talks come to the EIT RIS regions

Morning Health Talks is a series of networking events for future thinking healthcare professionals and top and middle-level managers interested in healthcare innovations. It is an exclusive business breakfast with a keynote speech and networking part that enables integration of the local community of key opinion leaders with EIT Health. The last year pilot series was organised in Budapest, Hungary in May and in December 2019. The series turned out to be a success, therefore this year it will be organised in all EIT Health Hubs regions. More information will be available soon.

For the forthcoming EIT Health InnoStars and Hubs events please check here.

To learn more about Hubs please visit EIT Health RIS section here.