EIT Health Annual Report 2022

EIT Health is a vast and diverse community of world leading health innovators, backed by the European Union. During 2022 we worked hard to break down barriers and connect relevant players across borders, so scalable and impactful innovation could come to life. 

We believe that by bringing together what we call the “knowledge triangle” – research, education, and business – life-changing healthcare innovation can happen. Having diverse stakeholders such as policy makers and healthcare providers together at the table ensures we have the right expertise from every corner of our community to work collaboratively to drive necessary improvements to the ways healthcare is received and delivered and facilitate sustainable healthcare systems.

A key development in 2022 for EIT Health was the consolidation of our annual business call to focus activities across four strategic focus areas, each representing one of Europe’s greatest healthcare challenges, known as our Flagships. Each of the four flagships was identified as a critical area where we believed focused innovation could make significant and tangible benefits to patients and their health outcomes. 

EIT Health also took the first of many steps towards becoming a financially sustainable organisation, when it will no longer receive or rely on funding from the European Union in 2027. This has meant that we have started to identify alternative funding sources, with a view that these will bring new opportunities to us and our network as we look to the future. 

We supported 703 start-ups and scale-ups to grow their business

€880.6M in investment attracted by our supported start-ups and scale-ups

We launched 22 innovations to market

We supported 17 early-stage start-ups in progressing regions through our InnoStars Awards to bridge the innovation gap

We worked closely with the community and saw: 

268 new industry jobs created as a direct result of projects we worked on

362,768 citizens benefitted from solutions developed or implemented

Trained 20,325 students and professionals through EIT Health education programmes

Accelerating access to solutions

One of the highlights from 2022 was the number of citizens and patients who benefitted from solutions created through our High Value Care (HVC) projects. HARMONICS, a comprehensive stroke care ecosystem to deliver high value post-hospital stroke care and the first HVC selected as part of our Innovation portfolio, was a notable example of this. Through this solution, stroke patients will be monitored, mainly at the post-acute and post-hospital level, ensuring better outcomes, improving recovery, and preventing recurrence.

Supporting the innovation talent of the future

In 2022, the EIT’s Higher Education Institution (HEI) focused initiative, HEI Initiative – Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education, trained nearly 6000 students, as well as academic and non-academic staff, to unlock the full innovation potential of higher education institutions. We also trained more than 5000 students and healthcare professionals through our non-degree education programmes, providing hands-on expertise and knowledge to learners.

 Growing our community

We recognise the value and importance of growing our innovation community. Through InnoStars  we launched 17 pilot projects. These projects contributed towards our goal of upskilling talent to help close the skills gap in the health innovation sector.

Continuing to support Europe’s top start-ups  

As well as facilitating the launch of products and services through projects, we have been working closely with top European start-ups to support them on their journeys to achieve European and global commercial success. In 2022, we supported 703 start-ups and scale-ups, through our programmes. Our supported start-ups and scale-ups attracted €880.6M in 2022 and we created 268 new industry jobs as a direct result of projects we were involved with, contributing to our mission to create a sustainable health economy in Europe.

EIT Health invests €3M in early detection of cancer 

Our Wild Card programme builds and invests in promising ventures with bold solutions to Europe’s greatest healthcare challenges. In 2022 we announced support for two innovator teams following the 2022 Wild Card programme. German start-up, Bonescreen, and Italian start-up, NIB biotec, will each receive up to €1.5M in investment, mentoring and coaching, and access to our expansive network of investors and innovators across Europe.

Acquisitions of our supported start-ups 

OmicEra, a plantegg-based diagnostics start-up specialising in large-scale protein analyses and selected for the Gold Track programme, was acquired for $15M by Exact Sciences, a U.S. cancer diagnostics company.

The EIT Health Academy 

The EIT Health Academy launched in 2022 and has been built to provide a frictionless learning platform experience. It provides best-in-class tools that accommodate the pedagogical needs of learners and subject matter experts. The EIT Health Academy team supported more than 2000 learners during their first year. 

EIT Fellowships  

We prepared for a new EIT Labelled Fellowship Scheme in 2022 to fully equip future innovators with the skills they need to thrive. We also focused on ensuring that we would be in a good position to enhance its scalability and reach, putting us on the path to upskilling more talent in the forthcoming years, which will include the introduction of three different fellowships.

Increasing the awareness of life sciences 

The WorkInHealth Foundation was devised to address the evident and growing skills and talent gaps within the healthcare industry across Europe. In 2022 the foundation held two online career fairs, connecting more than 460 talents from across Europe, including more than 25 companies and start-ups. More than 100 one-to-one meetings were held during the second fair. The success of these career fairs highlights WorkInHealth’s crucial role in cultivating a dynamic and skilled workforce for the healthcare sector’s future.

We are more determined than ever in 2023 to continue our hard work, collaborating with stakeholders across our network and throughout Europe to achieve our strategic goals of: 

Strengthening healthcare systems

Promoting better health of European citizens and patients

Contributing to a sustainable health economy

To achieve these goals, we will continue to work with the community to:  

Accelerate needs-based health innovations to achieve wide market uptake in Europe 

Increase the value and impact of EU-based SMEs in the health and healthcare sector to compete globally

Attract and develop the skills of those with the potential to design, develop or utilise healthcare Innovations

Support healthcare providers, professionals, and payors to transform care towards outcomes that have the highest impact and are of most importance to patients

Impact and drive healthcare innovation policy in Europe based on evidence, learnings, and experience from EIT Health activities

We remain committed to working together to help healthcare innovations reach European citizens and have a positive societal impact. In 2023 we look forward to understanding the potential scale of the impact of the new Flagship strategy. We are also focused on seeking new opportunities, new partnerships and working across borders to continue to drive change across the sector.

Read our 2023 – 2025 Business Plan to find out more about what we hope to achieve in 2023 and beyond.

If you are someone looking to deliver societal impact and would like to see how we can help you achieve this ambition, find out how to become a member of EIT Health, so together, we can change lives.