Regional innovation scheme looks for greater commercial success

The Regional Innovation Scheme has had some success in closing Europe’s innovation gap, but ten years after launch, it is time for it to evolve, says the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

The scheme started in 2014 to support innovation in the 22 countries and regions ranked as emerging or moderate innovators on the European Innovation Scoreboard. This is mostly done through hubs run by EIT where entrepreneurs and start-ups can access training, funding, business support and information on the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).

A decade on and over 100 hubs have been set up in regional innovation scheme countries and around €300 million in EIT grants has been handed out to companies, start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Luke Incorvaja, the scheme’s EIT coordinator, says it is “delivering on its mission” but it needs to “continue and evolve”.

This will mean EIT focusing more on helping companies it has supported so far to grow, gain more market share and attract investment. “We don't just want to support a higher number of start-ups, but to support our current start-ups to grow. We want to see an increasing number of commercial success stories,” he said.

At the same time, EIT is putting in place a new structure to connect and coordinate its hubs, replacing a haphazard network of standalone hubs with Community Hubs, which will provide more centralised and comprehensive information on all of EIT’s activities. Community hubs have so far been set up in North Macedonia, Latvia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Montenegro and Malta, with the goal of eventually opening one in every country that is part of the regional innovation scheme.

EIT support in regional innovation scheme countries

The eligible member states are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, while the Horizon Europe associated countries of Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine are also eligible.

In addition, the French territories of Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique, Mayotte and Saint-Martin, the Portuguese territories of the Azores and Madeira, and Spain’s Canary Islands, also qualify for support.

The specific mechanism by which the regional innovation scheme operates by connecting entrepreneurs and company founders to the wider EIT network of nine Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) through regional innovation scheme hubs in Hubs in the eligible countries.

As things stand, not all KICs are represented in each country with a hub, and that is why EIT is now establishing Community Hubs, which will provide information on all of the KICs. There will be a community hub in each eligible country by the end of 2025.

You can find the closest Hub in this interactive map here. The impact of using the hubs to get in touch with EIT is highlighted in recent report showcasing the work of the EIT in the EU’s 13 newest member states published this month. It shows that since 2014, €280.4 million in EIT grants has been handed out to companies in EU13 countries, which accounts for 10.7% of the total issued in grants.

EIT says 306 innovations have been supported in EU-13 countries in this time, 17.9% of the total. Examples include the Croatian company Earthbound, which develops and manufactures environmentally sustainable footwear. It was backed by the Climate-KICs ClimAccelerator in 2018 and by May 2022 had raised €1 million in external funding. The company also participated in EIT Manufacturing’s Partnerships for Growth programme where it was helped to create a partner profile, participated in workshops for sharing best practices in business development, and learned about programmes for financing innovation collaborations, as well as platforms for connecting with the manufacturing industry.

In another example, the Lithuanian company Inbalance Grid, a specialises in electric vehicle charging, was also supported by the Climate-KICs ClimAccelerator in 2020 and received €200,000 in grants from EIT Urban Mobility to help it expand into the Polish market.

The Romanian company Lumen applies the latest technology to make glasses to help visually impaired people. It has been supported by EIT Health through its Health Headstart and Health Catapult programmes which support companies scaling up. The company also received six-months’ training support through EIT Urban Mobility’s Better Mobility Accelerator programme. Lumen is the first Romanian start-up to be supported by the European Innovation Council, winning a €9.3 million grant.

There is more information on the EIT’s regional innovation support scheme here.

These are a few examples of how the scheme has helped promising start-ups in eligible countries. Incorvaja is convinced the regional innovation scheme has improved innovation in Europe’s lagging countries. The data back this up. The European Innovation Scoreboard shows that the performance of all countries in the scheme improved between 2016 - 2023 except Ukraine, where it slightly decreased, and Türkiye, where it has plateaued.

In a recent report showcasing the EIT’s work in the 13 EU member states that joined the bloc after 2004, EIT pointed to the participation rate of these countries in its grants, in comparison to Horizon Europe rates.  For example, EU13 countries won 13% of total EIT grant funding in 2021-2022, compared to 4.85% of Horizon Europe funding.

“EIT is the largest innovation system in Europe, providing training, access to finance, talent, partners, testbeds […] I don’t think there is any other instrument like this,” Incorvaja said.

The benefits of the scheme will become more apparent in the future. “In 10 years’ time […] my dream is that there is no longer a need for EIT regional innovation scheme, and that countries have caught up and closed the innovation gap. But I think that we will always need a regional innovation scheme in one form or another,” he said. “Evidence points to the EIT delivering and I think in 10 years’ time we’ll think of the regional innovation scheme as a flagship programme of its time.”

Untangling Europe’s regional innovation schemes

Another programme supporting innovation is the EU Smart Specialisation Strategy, under which member states to select niche areas where they have specific strengths and for which they can then access funding through the European Regional Development Fund.

In 2022 the EU launched Partnerships for Regional Innovation to complement the Smart Specialisation Strategy. This scheme to boost local innovation ecosystems and help Europe tackle the climate crisis involved an initial 63 regions and seven cities. It funded workshops and other opportunities for exchanging good practice between the regions and cities, innovation policy reviews carried out with external experts, and analyses of innovation ecosystems.

Following this, the EU launched the Regional Innovation Valley scheme in 2023 in partnership with the European Committee of the Regions. The goal is to get 100 regions to commit to creating “innovation valleys”, to collaborate on specific innovation projects across regions. The EU backed this initiative with two calls for proposals worth a total of €122 million to help get the valleys of the ground. The calls closed in October last year with 57 proposals submitted.

Incorvaja contests the idea that the EU’s various regional innovation schemes cause confusion on the ground. “I think it’s clear what we do,” he said. “All of the EU’s regional innovation schemes are fully interlocking in nature.  We specifically tackle the needs of each ecosystem locally, through a network of EIT regional innovation scheme hubs. This helps us to understand local needs and we are fully aligned with [Smart Specialisation] priorities.”

There is an opportunity to link better with the regional innovation valley scheme. “The two instruments can, should and will work together,” he said.

Markku Markkula, Committee of the Regions vice president said that the two initiatives have their own place in Europe’s innovation ecosystem. “Regional innovation valleys are based on the smart specialisation strategies of the region and focus on integrating the innovation leader regions to collaborate with modest and emerging regions – thus getting everyone on board,” he said.

“In my experience, the EIT regional innovation scheme is targeted and starts with individual and specific innovation and start-up ideas or companies, compared to regional innovation valley, which starts with the regional innovation ecosystem development and bench learning of several regions," he added.