1. EIT
"The European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) is a new independent European Community body that was set up to address European's knowledge gap. It is headquartered in Budapest and officially commenced work in September 2008. The mission of the EIT is to develop and capitalise on the innovation capacity and capability of actors from higher education, research, business and entrepreneurship from the EU and beyond, principally via the creation of highly integrated Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)."
2. KIC
A KIC is defined as a collaborative partnership, a legally and financially structured and managed entity of internationally distributed but thematically convergent parties. The KIC is to establish an innovation chain - from education to economic impact - drawing on, but moving beyond the experience and capabilities of individual parties. A KIC should deliver measurable societal, economic and entrepreneurial learning and business impact.
KICs are characterized by geographically distributed people who are brought together for significant periods to work in centres where individuals from different types of organizations and cultures (nationalities, industry, academia, research etc) are co-located in significant parts of the innovation chain (co-location centres). This co-location of people has the aim to allow stakeholders to work together face-to-face and move forward effectively towards KIC goals.
The co-location centres are expected to be the lead nodes amongst a much larger number of partners in the network. The call indicated that a KIC would typically have four to six co-location centres or lead nodes.
The EIT stipulated that a KIC should operate on a spending of at least 50-100 million € per year. The KICs may be financed for up to 25% of its global expenditure over the first four years through the EIT budget, drawing in the rest through other sources of financing (e.g. co-funding from European funds).
3. CLIMATE-KIC
The Climate KIC Consortium is extensive. Five co-location centres (CLC) are planned. Each CLC is driven by a local Consortium of "founding fathers and mothers', In addition, a number of major companies have joined Climate KIC as a "core partner" which implies that they are interested in a broad array of activities of the KIC and have translated this interest into a sizeable financial commitment.
An existing network of regions cooperating in the so-called Regional Innovation Implementation Community (RIC) is also a core partner in Climate KIC. Each region brings together its key regional development players – regional and local authorities, universities, research and technology organizations and industry. In addition to the CLC's and core partners, other organizations can and will be involved in the activities of the KIC in programmes or in projects.
Four focus programmes have been identified:
1. Assessing climate change and managing its drivers
2. Transitioning to resilient, low-carbon cities
3. Adaptive water management
4. Zero carbon production systems
The CLIMATE-KIC consortium consists of 16 core partners, five from the academic side, one regional partner, and ten from the corporate world.
The following five research and educational institutions form the academic core:
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Imperial College, UK
IPSL - ParisTech- CEA - INRA - USVQ - Météo-France - Advancity, France
PIK(lead) - TU Berlin - TU Munich - GFZ - FZ Juelich - KlimaCampus Hamburg, Germany
Utrecht - Delft - Wageningen, The Netherlands
Core Partners from private sector:
Shell
DSM
Schiphol
Bayer
Beluga Shipping
Cisco
Électricité de France, (EDF)
SAP
Solarvalley
Thales
4. Randstad co-location
Information about the partners which make up the Dutch co-location
5. Governance structure
Climate KIC will be managed by a small entity based in Brussels: a CEO, a CFO and Heads of Education, Strategy and Innovation. The CEO will report to the Governing Board (GB). The GB consists of representatives of the five co-locations, the private core parterns, and the RIC. The KIC will be established as a foundation in the Netherlands.
The co-locations will be managed by a small team consisting of a "co-location lead' with supporting staff. In the Netherlands, a Foundation will be established to govern the KIC NL co-location. The founding fathers are Utrecht University, TU Delft, Wageningen UR, Stadshavens Rotterdam, Deltares, TNO and Province of Utrecht. The Dutch KIC office will be established at Utrecht University.
